Gawd Struth We Have

We have fed you full for a thousand years
And you hail us still unfed,
Though there’s never a quid of all your wealth
But marks the workers dead.
We have yielded our best to give you rest,
And you lie on a crimson wool,
For if blood be the price of all your wealth.
By Christ ! we have paid in full.

There’s 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 your dead by your forges red,
And in factories where we spin ;
If blood be the price of your cursed wealth,
By Christ ! we have paid in full.

We have fed you full for a thousand years,
For that was our doom you know,
From the day that you chained us to your fields
To the strike of a week ago.
You have eaten our lives and our babes and wives.
And they say its your lawful share ;
But if blood be the price of your lawful Wealth
By Christ ! we have bought it fair.

STRIPLING