There is no time to discuss or debate
|
what is right, what is wrong for our people.
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Time has run out for all those who wait
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with bent limbs and minds that are feeble.
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And the rain falls and blows through their window
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and the snow falls and blows through their door.
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And the seasons revolve mid their sounds of starvation.
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When the tides rise, they cover the floor.
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They come from the north and they come from the south
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and they come from the hills and the valleys.
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And they're migrants and farmers and miners and humans,
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our census neglected to tally.
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And the rain falls and blows through their window
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and the rain falls and it blows through their door.
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And the seasons revolve mid their sounds of starvation.
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When the tides rise, they cover the floor.
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And they¢„re African, Mexican, Caucasian, Indian,
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hungry and hopeless Americans.
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The orphans of wealth and of adequate health,
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disowned by this nation they live in.
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And with weather worn hands on bread lines they stand,
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yet but one more degradation.
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And they're treated like tramps while we sell them food stamps
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this thriving and prosperous nation.
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And the rain falls and blows through their window
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and the snow falls and blows through their door.
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And the seasons revolve mid their sounds of starvation.
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When the tides rise, they cover the floor.
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And with roaches and rickets and rats in the thickets,
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infested, diseased and decaying.
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With rags and no shoes and skin sores that ooze,
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by the poisonous pools, they are playing.
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In shacks of two rooms that are rotting wood tombs
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with corpses breathing inside them.
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And we pity their plight as they call in the night
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and we do all that we can do to hide them.
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And the rain falls and blows through their window
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and the snow falls in white drifts that fold
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and the tides rise with floods in the nursery.
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And a child is crying, he's hungry and cold,
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his life has been sold, his young face looks old.
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It's the face of America, dying.
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Orphans of wealth
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| Don McLean |
