“The Factory Slave” Sheet Music (pdf).
“The Factory Slave” Karaoke (midi with lyrics).
Lyrics: T. Phillips Thompson.
Tune: “Old Folks at Home.”
Toiling amid the smoke and clamor,
From morn till night,
Deafened by noise of wheel and hammer,
Far from the glad sunlight,
Piling up stores of wealth for others,
While we grow poor,
Tell me, O, suff’ring, toiling brothers,
How long shall this endure?
All my life is full of sorrow;
Welcome seems the grave.
Oh, when will freedom’s bright tomorrow
Dawn on the fact’ry 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 tomorrow
Dawn on the fact’ry 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 tomorrow
Dawn on the fact’ry slave?