Lyrics Billy Gilman

Billy Gilman

Peaceable Kingdom

A leopard with a harmless kid lay down

And not one savage beast was seen to frown

The wolf 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

[Chorus:]

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

[Chorus]

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

[Chorus x 2]