It seems to sing, the life you gave
Will hasten that day of liberty.
CHORUS TO LAST STANZA
Farewell, Joe, you had to go.
The masters had declared that you should die, Joe,
But although you're gone into that great unknown
Your memory long with us, shall live.
WE HAVE FED YOU ALL FOR A THOUSAND YEARS
Poem—by an Unknown Proletarian.
Music—by Rudolf von Liebich, of the General Recruiting Union, Chicago, and Composer of Music for the Working Class.
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 worker's dead.
We have yielded our best to give you rest
And you lie on crimson wool.
Then if blood be the price of all your wealth,
Good God! We have paid it 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
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