Let the Slave by William Blake

America, a Prophesy  is an epic poem written by William Blake in 1793. It foretells the fall of the Anglo/American empire for the sin of slavery. Let the Slave/The Price of Experience is an excerpt from the poem set to music by English jazz musician Mike Westbrook. 

Let the slave grinding at the mill run out into the field

Let him look up into the heavens and laugh in the bright air

Let the inchained soul, shut up in darkness and in sighing

Whose face has never seen a smile in thirty weary Years

Rise 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 lives is holy.

The Price of Experience

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 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