| Home Page Listen Lyrics Calendar The Store Contact The Bongo Girls Holly Reed | Cruel Power (from Ben Gunn’s Poem The Vagrancy Law, 1889) When laws are made by men of wealth Do they consider the poor man’s health Do they think of the poor man’s fate While they’re stealin’ the crumbs right from the mouths of babes It was never meant for sinful men To wring fortune from their kin To sell their souls when making laws And crush the poor with iron jaws We must rise up, rise up and fight Stand up, stand up for what is right Throw out those fiends of cruel power And take back this land before the final hour. Those heinous laws made for the few What on earth can poor men do Who have no gold to pay the tax And the burden is placed right the poor men’s backs We must rise up, rise up and fight Stand up, stand up for what is right Throw out those fiends of cruel power And take back this land before the final hour. | More song lyrics |