Welcome to the Lyrics Den! Here you will find 128,771 lyrics organized in 8564 albums from 2177 artists! We have made the site as uncluttered as possible so that you may have the best browsing experience! Please feel free to submit your own lyrics by creating an account. If you cannot find what you want here, please try our sister site Lyrics Gump

Home Posters Secret Recipes

MP3 downloads

iPod Accessories Store
 
Browse artists > A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z 
Lyrics >  V >  Van Morrison >  A Sense of Wonder > Let The Slave
Login
Login:
Pass :

Sign up
Search
Let The Slave
(incorporating the price of experience. text: william blake)
Let the slave grinding at the mill run out into the field
Let him look up into the heavens and laugh in the bnght air
Let the inchained soul, shut up in darkness and in sighing
Whose face has never seen a smile in thirty weary years
Rose and look out; his chains are loose, his dungeon doors are open;
And let his wife and children return from the oppressor’s scourge
They look behind at every step and believe it is a dream
Singing: the sun has left his blackness and has found a fresher morning
And the fair moon rejoices in the clear and cloudless night

For empire is no more and now the lion and wolf shall cease
For everything that lives is holy
For everything that lives is holy
For everything that lives is holy
For everything that lixes is holy

What is the price of experience? do men buy it for a song?
Or wisdom for a dance in the street? no, it is bought with the price
Of all that a man hath, his house, his wife, his children
Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy
And in the wither’d field where the farmer plows for bread in vain
It is an easy thing to triumph in the summer’s sun
And in the vintage and to sing on the waggon loaded with corn
It is an easy thing to talk of patience to the afflicted
To speak the laws of prudence to the homeless wanderer
To listen to the hungry raven’s cry in wintry season
When the red blood is fill’d with wine and with the marrow of lambs

It is an easy thing to laugh at wrathful elements
To hear the dog howl at the wintry door, the ox in the slaughter house moan;
To see a God on every wind and a blessing on every blast
To hear sounds of love in the thunder storm that destroys our enemies’ house;
To rejoice in the blight that covers his field
And the sickness that cuts off his children

While our olive and vine sing and laugh round our door
And our children bring fruits and flowers

Then the groan and the dolor are quite forgotten
And the slave grinding at the mill
And the captive in chains and the poor in the prison

And the soldier in the field
When the shatter’d bone hath laid him groaning among the happier dead
It is an easy thing to rejoice in the tents of prosperity:
Thus could I sing and thus rejoice: but it is not so with me
 
> Other songs from A Sense of Wonder
A New Kind of Man
A Sense of Wonder
Ancient of Days
If You Only Knew
The Master’s Eyes
Tore Down a La Rimbaud
What Would I Do