When earth produces, free and fair, the golden waving corn;

When fragrant fruits perfume the air and fleecy flocks are shorn;

Whilst thousands move with aching head and sing the ceaseless song,

"We starve, we die, oh, give us bread!"*  There must be something wrong.

"We starve, we die, oh, give us bread!"

There must be something wrong.

When wealth is wrought, as seasons roll, from off the fruitful soil;

When luxury from pole to pole reaps fruit from human toil;

When from a thousand, one alone, in plenty rolls along;

The others only gnaw the bone, there must be something wrong.

And when production never ends, the earth is yielding ever;

A copious harvest oft begins, but distribution  -  never!

When toiling millions work to fill the wealthy coffers strong,

When hands are crushed that work and till, there must be something wrong.

When poor men's tables waste away to barrenness and drought

There must be something in the way that's worth the finding out;

With surfeits one great table bends while numbers move along

And scarce a crust their board extends, there must be something wrong.

Then let the law give equal right to wealthy and to poor;

Let freedom crush the arm of might, we ask for nothing more;

Until this system is begun, the burden of our song

Must and can be only one . . . there must be something wrong.

* John W. Hutchinson said that "give us bread" means "give us work."