We Have Fed You All for a Thousand Years

We have fed you all for a thousand years
And here we are still unfed
But there’s never a dollar of all your wealth
That’s doesn’t mark the workers dead
We have given our best to give you rest
And you lie on crimson wool
But if blood be the price of all your wealth
Then good God we have paid in full

There is never a mine blown skyward now
But we’re buried alive for you
There is never a wreck drifts shoreward now
But we are its ghastly crew
Go reckon our dead by the forges red
And the factories where we spin
Lord, if blood be the price of your cursed wealth
Good God we have paid it in

We have fed you all for a thousand years
For that was our doom, you know
From the days when you chained us in your fields
To the strike a week ago
You have taken our lives, and our babies and wives
And we’re told it’s your legal share
But if blood be the price of your lawful wealth
Then good God we have bought it fair