Sheep Are Eating Men

[Verse 1] After the wars, the fields stood bare Then fences rose like winter prayer Lord by lord, the pastures grew And lambed-up wealth came sewn with rue Old lanes turned hard to timber rails The commons hushed their smoking tales Moss and fern and grazing ground Gone behind the hedge and bound [Pre-Chorus] Hear the cart-wheel, hear the plea Hear the gate shut cold on me Bread to one, and none to spare Who keeps the green once shared? [Chorus] Sheep are eating men Sheep are eating men They chew the yard, the lease, the skin Sheep are eating men Sheep are eating men And leaving us the cold within [Verse 2] Widows watched the flocks pass by Under eyelids as heavy as the sky Children learned the acre’s price In cold red hands and thin-scraped rye The wool ran silver through the town While boots and bowls went upside down The rich tied knots in velvet thread The poor lost ground and then their bread [Pre-Chorus] Hear the thorn and hear the cry Hear the tenant say goodbye When the common path is sealed What grows where hunger kneels? [Chorus] Sheep are eating men Sheep are eating men They chew the yard, the lease, the skin Sheep are eating men Sheep are eating men And leaving us the cold within [Bridge] Knot the hedge and knot the lie Knot the law that starves the eye Gold in the fold, and mud in hand One may feast, and one may stand But under every counted stitch There’s a village made less rich A woven world pulled tight, then torn A green turned ash, a child unborn [Final Chorus] Sheep are eating men Sheep are eating men They chew the yard, the lease, the skin Sheep are eating men Sheep are eating men And leaving us the cold within Sheep are eating men Sheep are eating men The poor still sing where fences went Sheep are eating men Sheep are eating men A Tudor knot of loss is bent