Billy Gilman: Peaceable Kingdom

A leopard with a harmless kid lay down
And not one savage beast was seen to frown
The wolf did with the lamb can dwell in peace
His grim carnivorous nature there did cease
The lion with the fatling awn did move
And a little child was leading them in love

Long ago there was a young painter
Who had a dream that every creature came
And stood assembled by his side
And he painted the sight that had sweetened his night
For the one hundred times before he died
A kid lion and a snake and a child
Wide-eyed and formal and smiling like the sun had stopped
And time had ceased to move
And the wolf and the lamb
Came and ate from his hand
And a man-child was leading them in love

Friend have you seen all the lines and the spaces
The colors that the old painter sees
In the peaceable kingdom that shines in the faces
Of people from more gentle times than these

I find myself adrift these days
And endless maze of ends and ways
And worlds seem so crazy to be here
But look away look away
Back or forward from today
To the visions of either fools or sears

Oh my friend have you seen all the lines and the spaces
The colors that the old painter sees
In the peaceable kingdom that shines in the faces
Of people from more gentle times than these

Such a beautiful place
Full of joy full of grace
It was bathed in our saintly yellow lie
To what learning to know that such things can't be so
He could only believe that they might

Oh my friend have you seen all the lines and the spaces
The colors that the old painter sees
In the peaceable kingdom that shines in the faces
Of people from more gentle times than these

Friend have you seen all the lines and the spaces
The colors that the young painter sees
In the peaceable kingdom that shines in the faces
Of people from more gentle times than these