The Price of Wishes

A/N - Hi me again with more poetry rewrites. Bit obscure [understatement] this one but have you any idea how hard it is to find Laby references in a William Black peom!!! Please review anyway, before I switch to Poe!

Disclaimer - I do not own Labyrinth or any of Blakes peotry because if I did I would be on my private yacht by now!

What is the price of wishes? Do men trade them for a song? Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price Of all a man hath, his house, his wife, his children. Wishes are 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 prudence to the afflicted,
To speak the laws of prudence to the houseless 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 slaughterhouse 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 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 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.