(Tune: Nellie Gray Also sounds good to That Aggravating
Beauty Lula Walls)
(h~' Ralph Chapin) (14th edition, April 1918)
In the gloom of mighty cities
'Mid the roar of whirling wheels
We are toiling on like chattel slaves of old, And our masters hope to
keep us
Ever thus beneath their heels
And to coin our very life blood into gold.
[Chorus]
But we have a glowing dream Of how fair the world will seem
When each man can live his life secure and free; When the earth is
owned by Labor
And there's love and peace for all in the Commonwealth of Toil that
is to he.
They would keep us cowed and beaten Cringing meekly at their feet
They would stand between each worker and his bread. Shall we
yield our lives up to them
For the bitter crust we eat?
Shall we only hope for heaven when we're dead?
[chorus]
They have laid our lives out for us
To the utter end of time.
Shall we stagger on beneath their heavy load? Shall we let them live
forever
In their gilded halls of crime
With our children doomed to toil beneath their goad? When our
cause is all triumphant
And we claim our Mother Earth, And the nightmare of the present
fades away,
We shall live with love and laughter, We who now are little worth,
And we'll not regret the price we have to pay.
[chorus]