Utah Phillips

We Have Fed You All a Thousand Years

We have fed you all for a thousand years
And you hail us still unfed
Though there's never a dollar of all your wealth
But marks the workers' dead
We have yielded our best to give you rest
And you lie on crimson wool
And if blood be the price of all your wealth
Good God! We have paid in full!

There is never a mine blown skyward now
But we're buried alive for you
There's 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
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, our husbands and wives
And we're told it's your legal share
But if blood be the price of your lawful wealth
Good God! We have bought it fair!