Collected Poetical Works of Kahlil Gibran Read online

  And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,

  And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,

  And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,

  And all work is empty save when there is love;

  And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.

  And what is it to work with love?

  It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.

  It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.

  It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.

  It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,

  And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching.

  Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, “he who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is a nobler than he who ploughs the soil.

  And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet.”

  But I say, not in sleep but in the over-wakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass;

  And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.

  Work is love made visible.

  And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

  For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man’s hunger.

  And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.

  And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.

  Joy and Sorrow

  Then a woman said, “Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.”

  And he answered:

  Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

  And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

  And how else can it be?

  The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

  Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?

  And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

  When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

  When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

  Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”

  But I say unto you, they are inseparable.

  Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

  Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.

  Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.

  When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

  Houses

  Then a mason came forth and said, “Speak to us of Houses.”

  And he answered and said:

  Build of your imaginings a bower in the wilderness ere you build a house within the city walls.

  For even as you have home-comings in your twilight, so has the wanderer in you, the ever distant and alone.

  Your house is your larger body.

  It grows in the sun and sleeps in the stillness of the night; and it is not dreamless. Does not your house dream? And dreaming, leave the city for grove or hilltop?

  Would that I could gather your houses into my hand, and like a sower scatter them in forest and meadow.

  Would the valleys were your streets, and the green paths your alleys, that you might seek one another through vineyards, and come with the fragrance of the earth in your garments.

  But these things are not yet to be.

  In their fear your forefathers gathered you too near together. And that fear shall endure a little longer. A little longer shall your city walls separate your hearths from your fields.

  And tell me, people of Orphalese, what have you in these houses? And what is it you guard with fastened doors?

  Have you peace, the quiet urge that reveals your power?

  Have you remembrances, the glimmering arches that span the summits of the mind?

  Have you beauty, that leads the heart from things fashioned of wood and stone to the holy mountain?

  Tell me, have you these in your houses?

  Or have you only comfort, and the lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and becomes a host, and then a master?

  Ay, and it becomes a tamer, and with hook and scourge makes puppets of your larger desires.

  Though its hands are silken, its heart is of iron.

  It lulls you to sleep only to stand by your bed and jeer at the dignity of the flesh.

  It makes mock of your sound senses, and lays them in thistledown like fragile vessels.

  Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul, and then walks grinning in the funeral.

  But you, children of space, you restless in rest, you shall not be trapped nor tamed.

  Your house shall be not an anchor but a mast.

  It shall not be a glistening film that covers a wound, but an eyelid that guards the eye.

  You shall not fold your wings that you may pass through doors, nor bend your heads that they strike not against a ceiling, nor fear to breathe lest walls should crack and fall down.

  You shall not dwell in tombs made by the dead for the living.

  And though of magnificence and splendour, your house shall not hold your secret nor shelter your longing.

  For that which is boundless in you abides in the mansion of the sky, whose door is the morning mist, and whose windows are the songs and the silences of night.

  Clothes

  And the weaver said, “Speak to us of Clothes.”

  And he answered:

  Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful.

  And though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy you may find in them a harness and a chain.

  Would that you could meet the sun and the wind with more of your skin and less of your raiment,

  For the breath of life is in the sunlight and the hand of life is in the wind.

  Some of you say, “It is the north wind who has woven the clothes to wear.”

  But shame was his loom, and the softening of the sinews was his thread.

  And when his work was done he laughed in the forest.

  Forget not that modesty is for a shield against the eye of the unclean.

  And when the unclean shall be no more, what were modesty but a fetter and a fouling of the mind?

  And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.

  Buying and Selling

  And a merchant said, “Speak to us of Buying and Selling.”

  And he answered and said:

  To you the earth yields her fruit, and you shall not want if you but know how to fill your hands.

  It is in exchanging the gifts of the earth that you shall find abundance and be satisfied.

  Yet unless the exchange be in love and kindly justice, it will but lead some to greed and others to hunger.

  When in the market place you toilers of the sea and fields and vineyards meet the weavers and the potters and the gatherers of spices, -

  Invoke then the master spirit of the earth, to
come into your midst and sanctify the scales and the reckoning that weighs value against value.

  And suffer not the barren-handed to take part in your transactions, who would sell their words for your labour.

  To such men you should say,

  “Come with us to the field, or go with our brothers to the sea and cast your net;

  For the land and the sea shall be bountiful to you even as to us.”

  And if there come the singers and the dancers and the flute players, - buy of their gifts also.

  For they too are gatherers of fruit and frankincense, and that which they bring, though fashioned of dreams, is raiment and food for your soul.

  And before you leave the marketplace, see that no one has gone his way with empty hands.

  For the master spirit of the earth shall not sleep peacefully upon the wind till the needs of the least of you are satisfied.

  Crime and Punishment

  Then one of the judges of the city stood forth and said, “Speak to us of Crime and Punishment.”

  And he answered saying:

  It is when your spirit goes wandering upon the wind,

  That you, alone and unguarded, commit a wrong unto others and therefore unto yourself.

  And for that wrong committed must you knock and wait a while unheeded at the gate of the blessed.

  Like the ocean is your god-self;

  It remains for ever undefiled.

  And like the ether it lifts but the winged.

  Even like the sun is your god-self;

  It knows not the ways of the mole nor seeks it the holes of the serpent.

  But your god-self does not dwell alone in your being.

  Much in you is still man, and much in you is not yet man,

  But a shapeless pigmy that walks asleep in the mist searching for its own awakening.

  And of the man in you would I now speak.

  For it is he and not your god-self nor the pigmy in the mist, that knows crime and the punishment of crime.

  Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he were not one of you, but a stranger unto you and an intruder upon your world.

  But I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you,

  So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also.

  And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree,

  So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all.

  Like a procession you walk together towards your god-self.

  You are the way and the wayfarers.

  And when one of you falls down he falls for those behind him, a caution against the stumbling stone.

  Ay, and he falls for those ahead of him, who though faster and surer of foot, yet removed not the stumbling stone.

  And this also, though the word lie heavy upon your hearts:

  The murdered is not unaccountable for his own murder,

  And the robbed is not blameless in being robbed.

  The righteous is not innocent of the deeds of the wicked,

  And the white-handed is not clean in the doings of the felon.

  Yea, the guilty is oftentimes the victim of the injured,

  And still more often the condemned is the burden-bearer for the guiltless and unblamed.

  You cannot separate the just from the unjust and the good from the wicked;

  For they stand together before the face of the sun even as the black thread and the white are woven together.

  And when the black thread breaks, the weaver shall look into the whole cloth, and he shall examine the loom also.

  If any of you would bring to judgment the unfaithful wife,

  Let him also weigh the heart of her husband in scales, and measure his soul with measurements.

  And let him who would lash the offender look unto the spirit of the offended.

  And if any of you would punish in the name of righteousness and lay the axe unto the evil tree, let him see to its roots;

  And verily he will find the roots of the good and the bad, the fruitful and the fruitless, all entwined together in the silent heart of the earth.

  And you judges who would be just,

  What judgment pronounce you upon him who though honest in the flesh yet is a thief in spirit?

  What penalty lay you upon him who slays in the flesh yet is himself slain in the spirit?

  And how prosecute you him who in action is a deceiver and an oppressor,

  Yet who also is aggrieved and outraged?

  And how shall you punish those whose remorse is already greater than their misdeeds?

  Is not remorse the justice which is administered by that very law which you would fain serve?

  Yet you cannot lay remorse upon the innocent nor lift it from the heart of the guilty.

  Unbidden shall it call in the night, that men may wake and gaze upon themselves.

  And you who would understand justice, how shall you unless you look upon all deeds in the fullness of light?

  Only then shall you know that the erect and the fallen are but one man standing in twilight between the night of his pigmy-self and the day of his god-self,

  And that the corner-stone of the temple is not higher than the lowest stone in its foundation.

  Laws

  Then a lawyer said, “But what of our Laws, master?”

  And he answered:

  You delight in laying down laws,

  Yet you delight more in breaking them.

  Like children playing by the ocean who build sand-towers with constancy and then destroy them with laughter.

  But while you build your sand-towers the ocean brings more sand to the shore,

  And when you destroy them, the ocean laughs with you.

  Verily the ocean laughs always with the innocent.

  But what of those to whom life is not an ocean, and man-made laws are not sand-towers,

  But to whom life is a rock, and the law a chisel with which they would carve it in their own likeness?

  What of the cripple who hates dancers?

  What of the ox who loves his yoke and deems the elk and deer of the forest stray and vagrant things?

  What of the old serpent who cannot shed his skin, and calls all others naked and shameless?

  And of him who comes early to the wedding-feast, and when over-fed and tired goes his way saying that all feasts are violation and all feasters law-breakers?

  What shall I say of these save that they too stand in the sunlight, but with their backs to the sun?

  They see only their shadows, and their shadows are their laws.

  And what is the sun to them but a caster of shadows?

  And what is it to acknowledge the laws but to stoop down and trace their shadows upon the earth?

  But you who walk facing the sun, what images drawn on the earth can hold you?

  You who travel with the wind, what weathervane shall direct your course?

  What man’s law shall bind you if you break your yoke but upon no man’s prison door?

  What laws shall you fear if you dance but stumble against no man’s iron chains?

  And who is he that shall bring you to judgment if you tear off your garment yet leave it in no man’s path?

  People of Orphalese, you can muffle the drum, and you can loosen the strings of the lyre, but who shall command the skylark not to sing?

  Freedom

  And an orator said, “Speak to us of Freedom.”

  And he answered:

  At the city gate and by your fireside I have seen you prostrate yourself and worship your own freedom,

  Even as slaves humble themselves before a tyrant and praise him though he slays them.

  Ay, in the grove of the temple and in the shadow of the citadel I have seen the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke and a handcuff.

  And my heart bled within me; for you can only be free when even the desire of
seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfilment.

  You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief,

  But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.

  And how shall you rise beyond your days and nights unless you break the chains which you at the dawn of your understanding have fastened around your noon hour?

  In truth that which you call freedom is the strongest of these chains, though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle the eyes.

  And what is it but fragments of your own self you would discard that you may become free?

  If it is an unjust law you would abolish, that law was written with your own hand upon your own forehead.

  You cannot erase it by burning your law books nor by washing the foreheads of your judges, though you pour the sea upon them.

  And if it is a despot you would dethrone, see first that his throne erected within you is destroyed.

  For how can a tyrant rule the free and the proud, but for a tyranny in their own freedom and a shame in their won pride?

  And if it is a care you would cast off, that care has been chosen by you rather than imposed upon you.

  And if it is a fear you would dispel, the seat of that fear is in your heart and not in the hand of the feared.

  Verily all things move within your being in constant half embrace, the desired and the dreaded, the repugnant and the cherished, the pursued and that which you would escape.

  These things move within you as lights and shadows in pairs that cling.

  And when the shadow fades and is no more, the light that lingers becomes a shadow to another light.

  And thus your freedom when it loses its fetters becomes itself the fetter of a greater freedom.

  Reason and Passion

  And the priestess spoke again and said:

  “Speak to us of Reason and Passion.”

  And he answered saying:

  Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against passion and your appetite.