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| O LORDS! O rulers of the nation! | |
| O softly cloth’d! O richly fed! | |
| O men of wealth and noble station! | |
| Give us our daily bread. | |
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| For you we are content to toil, | 5 |
| For you our blood like rain is shed; | |
| Then, lords and rulers of the soil, | |
| Give us our daily bread. | |
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| Your silken robes, with endless care, | |
| Still weave we; still uncloth’d, unfed, | 10 |
| We make the raiment that ye wear: | |
| Give us our daily bread. | |
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| In the red forge-light do we stand, | |
| We early leave—late seek our bed, | |
| Tempering the steel for your right hand: | 15 |
| Give us our daily bread. | |
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| We sow your fields, ye reap the fruit; | |
| We live in misery and in dread; | |
| Hear but our prayer, and we are mute: | |
| Give us our daily bread. | 20 |
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| Throughout old England’s pleasant fields | |
| There is no spot where we may tread, | |
| No house to us sweet shelter yields: | |
| Give us our daily bread. | |
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| Fathers are we; we see our sons, | 25 |
| We see our fair young daughters, dead; | |
| Then hear us, O ye mighty ones! | |
| Give us our daily bread. | |
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| ’T is vain—with cold, unfeeling eye | |
| Ye gaze on us, uncloth’d, unfed; | 30 |
| ’T is vain—ye will not hear our cry, | |
| Nor give us daily bread. | |
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| We turn from you, our lords by birth, | |
| To him who is our Lord above; | |
| We all are made of the same earth, | 35 |
| Are children of one love. | |
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| Then, Father of this world of wonders, | |
| Judge of the living and the dead, | |
| Lord of the lightnings and the thunders, | |
| Give us our daily bread! | 40 |
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