Horner's Corner

William Blake : What is the Price of Experience?

by on May.11, 2010, under poetry

 

 

 

 

william.blake.mask

1.1“What is the price of Experience? do men buy it for a song?
1.2Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price
1.3Of all that a man hath, his house, his wife, his children.
1.4Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy,
1.5And in the wither’d field where the farmer plows for bread in vain.

1.6It is an easy thing to triumph in the summer’s sun
1.7And in the vintage and to sing on the waggon loaded with corn.
1.8It is an easy thing to talk of patience to the afflicted,
1.9To speak the laws of prudence to the houseless wanderer,
1.10To listen to the hungry raven’s cry in wintry season
1.11When the red blood is fill’d with wine and with the marrow of lambs.

1.12It is an easy thing to laugh at wrathful elements,
1.13To hear the dog howl at the wintry door, the ox in the slaughter house moan;
1.14To see a god on every wind and a blessing on every blast;
1.15To hear sounds of love in the thunder storm that destroys our enemies’ house;
1.16To rejoice in the blight that covers his field, and the sickness that cuts off his children,
1.17While our olive and vine sing and laugh round our door, and our children bring fruits and flowers.

1.18Then the groan and the dolor are quite forgotten, and the slave grinding at the mill,
1.19And the captive in chains, and the poor in the prison, and the soldier in the field
1.20When the shatter’d bone hath laid him groaning among the happier dead.

1.21It is an easy thing to rejoice in the tents of prosperity:
1.22Thus could I sing and thus rejoice: but it is not so with me.”


(extract)

– William Blake : The Four Zoas.

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