Toiling amid the smoke and clamor
From morn till night,
Deafened by noise of wheel and hammer
Far from the glad sunlight.
Piling up store of wealth for others
While we grow poor,
Tell me, oh ! suffering, toiling brothers,
How long shall this endure?
All my life is full of sorrow,
Welcome seems the grave ;
Oh when will freedom's bright to-morrow
Dawn on the factory slave ?
Often in search of work we wander,
Hungry we pine;
While wealth we earn our masters squander,
Feasting in palace fine.
Hard to behold the pallid faces
Of wife and child,
Stifled in foul and loathsome places,
Thoughts fit to drive me wild.
All my life is full of sorrow,
Welcome seems the grave ;
Oh when will freedom's bright to-morrow
Dawn on the factory slave ?
Hard is the lot of honest labor,
Crushed and oppressed ;
Where each is taught to rob his neighbor,
Greed steeling every breast.
Each has to freedom, air and earth right,
Such Heaven gave ;
Rich men have robbed us of our birthright -
Landless, a man's a slave.
All my life is full of sorrow,
Welcome seems the grave ;
Oh when will freedom's bright to-morrow
Dawn on the factory slave ?
From morn till night,
Deafened by noise of wheel and hammer
Far from the glad sunlight.
Piling up store of wealth for others
While we grow poor,
Tell me, oh ! suffering, toiling brothers,
How long shall this endure?
All my life is full of sorrow,
Welcome seems the grave ;
Oh when will freedom's bright to-morrow
Dawn on the factory slave ?
Often in search of work we wander,
Hungry we pine;
While wealth we earn our masters squander,
Feasting in palace fine.
Hard to behold the pallid faces
Of wife and child,
Stifled in foul and loathsome places,
Thoughts fit to drive me wild.
All my life is full of sorrow,
Welcome seems the grave ;
Oh when will freedom's bright to-morrow
Dawn on the factory slave ?
Hard is the lot of honest labor,
Crushed and oppressed ;
Where each is taught to rob his neighbor,
Greed steeling every breast.
Each has to freedom, air and earth right,
Such Heaven gave ;
Rich men have robbed us of our birthright -
Landless, a man's a slave.
All my life is full of sorrow,
Welcome seems the grave ;
Oh when will freedom's bright to-morrow
Dawn on the factory slave ?
Contributed by Bernart Bartleby - 2016/2/12 - 10:43
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Parole di Thomas Phillips Thompson (1843-1933), inglese di nascita ma trapiantato in Canada, giornalista, militante del Knights of Labor e poi del Partito socialista. Autore del volumetto di canzoni “The labor reform songster” pubblicato nel 1892 sul “Journal of the Knights of Labor”
Sulla melodia della popolare “Way Down upon the Swanee River”