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(Four Zoas, Night II, ll. 595626.) I AM made to sow the thistle for wheat, the nettle for a nourishing dainty: | |
I have planted a false oath in the earth; it has brought forth a Poison Tree: | |
I have chosen the serpent for a counsellor, and the dog | |
For a schoolmaster to my children: 1 | |
I have blotted out from light and living the dove and nightingale, | 5 |
And I have causèd the earthworm to beg from door to door: | |
I have taught the thief a secret path into the house of the just: | |
I have taught pale Artifice to spread his nets upon the morning. | |
My heavens are brass, my earth is iron, my moon a clod of clay, | |
My sun a pestilence burning at noon, and a vapour of death in night. | 10 |
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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 hathhis house, his wife, his children. | |
Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy, | |
And in the witherd field where the farmer ploughs for bread in vain. | 15 |
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It is an easy thing to triumph in the summers 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 houseless wanderer, | |
To listen to the hungry ravens cry in wintry season, | 20 |
When the red blood is filld with wine and with the marrow of lambs: | |
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It is an easy thing to laugh at wrathful elements; | |
To hear the dog howl at the wintry door, the ox in the slaughterhouse moan; | |
To see a God on every wind and a blessing on every blast; | |
To hear sounds of Love in the thunderstorm that destroys our enemys house; | 25 |
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. | |
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Then the groan and the dolour 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 shatterd bone hath laid him groaning among the happier dead: | 30 |
It is an easy thing to rejoice in the tents of prosperity | |
Thus would I sing and thus rejoice; but it is not so with me. | |