Collected Poetical Works of Kahlil Gibran

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Collected Poetical Works of Kahlil Gibran Page 32

by Kahlil Gibran


  A RICH LEVI IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF NAZARETH

  A RICH MAN

  A SHEPHERD IN SOUTH LEBANON

  A WIDOW IN GALILEE

  A WOMAN ONE OF MARY’S NEIGHBOURS

  A YOUNG PRIEST OF CAPERNAUM

  AHAZ THE PORTLY

  AMBITION

  AND WHEN MY JOY WAS BORN

  ANDREW

  ANNA THE MOTHER OF MARY

  ANNAS THE HIGH PRIEST

  ASSAPH CALLED THE ORATOR OF TYRE

  AT THE FAIR

  BARABBAS

  BARCA A MERCHANT OF TYRE

  BARTHOLOMEW IN EPHESUS

  BEAUTY

  BENJAMIN THE SCRIBE

  BEYOND MY SOLITUDE

  BIRBARAH OF YAMMOUNI

  BODY AND SOUL

  BUILDERS OF BRIDGES

  BUYING AND SELLING

  CAIAPHAS

  CHILDREN

  CLAUDIUS A ROMAN SENTINEL

  CLEOPAS OF BETHROUNE

  CLOTHES

  CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

  CRITICS

  CRUCIFIED

  CYBOREA

  DAVID ONE OF HIS FOLLOWERS

  DEATH

  DEFEAT

  DREAMS

  DYNASTIES

  EATING AND DRINKING

  ELMADAM THE LOGICIAN

  EPHRAIM OF JERICHO

  FACES

  FINDING GOD

  FREEDOM

  FRIENDSHIP

  GARMENTS

  GEORGUS OF BEIRUT

  GIVING

  GOD

  GOD AND MANY GODS

  GOD’S FOOL

  GOOD AND EVIL

  HANNAH OF BETHSAIDA

  HOUSES

  JAMES THE BROTHER OF THE LORD

  JAMES THE SON OF ZEBEDEE

  JEPHTHA OF CAESAREA

  JOANNA THE WIFE OF HEROD’S STEWARD

  JOHN AT PATMOS

  JOHN THE BAPTIST

  JOHN THE BELOVED DISCIPLE

  JOHN THE SON OF ZEBEDEE

  JONATHAN

  JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA

  JOSEPH OF ARIMETHEA

  JOSEPH SURNAMED JUSTUS

  JOTHAM OF NAZARETH TO A ROMAN

  JOY AND SORROW

  JUDAS THE COUSIN OF JESUS

  KNOWLEDGE AND HALF-KNOWLEDGE

  LADY RUTH

  LAWS

  LAWS AND LAW-GIVING

  LEVI A DISCIPLE

  LOVE

  LOVE

  LOVE AND HATE

  LUKE

  MANASSEH

  MANNUS THE POMPEIIAN TO A GREEK

  MARRIAGE

  MARY MAGDALEN THIRTY YEARS LATER

  MARY MAGDALENE

  MARY MAGDALENE

  MATTHEW

  MATTHEW

  MELACHI OF BABYLON AN ASTRONOMER

  MY FRIEND

  NAAMAN OF THE GADARENES

  NATHANIEL

  NICODEMUS THE POET

  NIGHT AND THE MADMAN

  ON GIVING AND TAKING

  ON THE STEPS OF THE TEMPLE

  ONE OF THE MARYS

  OTHER SEAS

  OUT OF MY DEEPER HEART

  PAIN

  PEACE AND WAR

  PEACE CONTAGIOUS

  PETER

  PETER

  PHILEMON A GREEK APOTHECARY

  PHILIP

  PHUMIAH THE HIGH PRIESTESS OF SIDON

  PILATE’S WIFE TO A ROMAN LADY

  PLEASURE

  POETS

  PONTIUS PILATUS

  PRAYER

  RACHAEL A WOMAN DISCIPLE

  RAFCA

  REASON AND PASSION

  RELIGION

  REPENTANCE

  RUMANOUS A GREEK POET

  SABA OF ANTIOCH

  SAID A BLADE OF GRASS

  SAID A SHEET OF SNOW-WHITE PAPER....

  SALOME TO A WOMAN FRIEND

  SAND AND FOAM

  SARKIS AN OLD GREEK SHEPHERD CALLED THE MADMAN

  SELF-KNOWLEDGE

  SEVENTY

  SHE WHO WAS DEAF

  SIMON THE CYRENE

  SIMON WHO WAS CALLED PETER

  SUZANNAH OF NAZARETH

  TALKING

  TEACHING

  TEARS AND LAUGHTER

  THE ASTRONOMER

  THE BLESSED CITY

  THE CAST

  THE COMING OF THE SHIP

  THE CURSE

  THE DANCER

  THE DYING MAN AND THE VULTURE

  THE EAGLE AND THE SKYLARK

  THE EARTH GODS

  THE EXCHANGE

  THE EYE

  THE FAREWELL

  THE FIELD OF ZAAD

  THE FORERUNNER. HIS PARABLES AND POEMS

  THE FOX

  THE FROGS

  THE FULL MOON

  THE GARDEN OF THE PROPHET

  THE GOLDEN BELT

  THE GOOD GOD AND THE EVIL GOD

  THE GRAVE-DIGGER

  THE GREAT LONGING

  THE GREATER SEA

  THE GREATER SELF

  THE HERMIT AND THE BEASTS

  THE HERMIT PROPHET

  THE KING

  THE KING OF ARADUS

  THE KING-HERMIT

  THE LAST WATCH

  THE LIGHTNING FLASH

  THE LION’S DAUGHTER

  THE LOVE SONG

  THE MADMAN

  THE MADMAN. HIS PARABLES AND POEMS

  THE MAN FROM THE DESERT

  THE MOUSE AND THE CAT

  THE NEW PLEASURE

  THE OLD, OLD WINE

  THE OTHER LANGUAGE

  THE OTHER WANDERER

  THE PATH

  THE PEARL

  THE PERFECT WORLD

  THE PHILOSOPHER AND THE COBBLER

  THE PLAY

  THE PLUTOCRAT

  THE POMEGRANATE

  THE POMEGRANATES

  THE PROPHET AND THE CHILD

  THE QUEST

  THE RED EARTH

  THE RIVER

  THE SAINT

  THE SCARECROW

  THE SCENE

  THE SCEPTRE

  THE SCHOLAR AND THE POET

  THE SEVEN SELVES

  THE SHADOW

  THE SLEEP-WALKERS

  THE STATUE

  THE THREE ANTS

  THE THREE GIFTS

  THE TWO CAGES

  THE TWO GUARDIAN ANGELS

  THE TWO HERMITS

  THE TWO HUNTERS

  THE TWO LEARNED MEN

  THE TWO POEMS

  THE TWO PRINCESSES

  THE WANDERER

  THE WEATHER-COCK

  THE WHALE AND THE BUTTERFLY

  THE WISE DOG

  THE WISE KING

  THE WOMAN OF BYBLOS

  THOMAS

  TIME

  TYRANNY

  UPON THE SAND

  URIAH AN OLD MAN OF NAZARETH

  VALUES

  WAR

  WAR AND THE SMALL NATIONS

  WHEN MY SORROW WAS BORN

  WORK

  YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW

  ZACCHAEUS

  The Play

  Gibran’s home in Bsharri

  LAZARUS AND HIS BELOVED

  CONTENTS

  SAND AND FOAM

  THE EARTH GODS

  THE GARDEN OF THE PROPHET

  THE CAST

  THE SCENE

  THE PLAY

  THE CAST

  Lazarus

  Mary, his sister

  Martha, his sister

  The mother of Lazarus

  Philip, a disciple

  A Madman

  THE SCENE

  The garden outside of the home of Lazarus and his mother and sisters in Bethany

  Late afternoon of Monday, the day after the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the grave.

  At curtain rise: Mary is at right gazing up towards the hills. Martha is seated at her loom near the house door, left. The Madman is seated around the corner of the house, and against its wall, down left.

  THE PLAY

&n
bsp; Mary: (Turning to Martha) You do not work. You have not worked much lately.

  Martha: You are not thinking of my work. My idleness makes you think of what our Master said. Oh, beloved Master!

  The Madman: The day shall come when there will be no weaver, and no one to wear the cloth. We shall all stand naked in the sun.

  (There is a long silence. The women do not appear to have heard The Madman speaking. They never hear him.)

  Mary: It is getting late.

  Martha: Yes, yes, I know. It is getting late.

  (The mother enters, coming out from the house door.)

  Mother: Has he not returned yet?

  Martha: No, mother, he has not returned yet.

  (The three women look towards the hills.)

  The Madman: He himself will never return. All that you may see is a breath struggling in a body.

  Mary: It seems to me that he has not yet returned from the other world.

  Mother: The death of our Master has afflicted him deeply, and during these last days he has hardly eaten a morsel, and I know at night that he does not sleep. Surely it must have been the death of our Friend.

  Martha: No, mother. There is something else; something I do not understand.

  Mary: Yes, yes. There is something else. I know it, too. I have known it all these days, yet I cannot explain it. His eyes are deeper. He gazes at me as though he were seeing someone else through me. He is tender but his tenderness is for someone not here. And he is silent, silent as if the seal of death is yet upon his lips.

  (A silence falls over the three women.)

  The Madman: Everyone looks through everyone else to see someone else.

  Mother: (Breaking the silence) Would that he’d return. Of late he has spent too many hours among those hills alone. He should be here with us.

  Mary: Mother, he has not been with us for a long time.

  Martha: Why, he has always been with us, only those three days!

  Mary: Three days? Three days! Yes, Martha, you are right. It was only three days.

  Mother: I wish my son would return from the hills.

  Martha: He will come soon, mother. You must not worry.

  Mary: (in a strange voice) Sometimes I feel that he will never come back from the hills.

  Mother: If he came back from the grave, the surely he will come back from the hills. And oh, my daughters, to think that the One who gave us back his life was slain but yesterday.

  Mary: Oh the mystery of it, and the pain of it.

  Mother: Oh, to think that they could be so cruel to the One who gave my son back to my heart.

  (A silence)

  Martha: But Lazarus should not stay so long among the hills.

  Mary: It is easy for one in a dream to lose his way among the olive groves. And I know a place where Lazarus loved to sit and dream and be still. Oh, mother, it is beside a little stream. If you do not know the place you could not find it. He took me there once, and we sat on two stones, like children. It was spring, and little flowers were growing beside us. We often spoke of that place during the winter season. And each time that he spoke of that place a strange light came into his eyes.

  The Madman: Yes, that strange light, that shadow cast by the other light.

  Mary: And mother, you know that Lazarus has always been away from us, though he was always with us.

  Mother: You say so many things I cannot understand. (Pause) I wish my son would come back from the hills. I wish he would come back! (Pause) I must go in now. The lentils must not be overcooked.

  (The mother exits through the door)

  Martha: I wish I could understand all that you say, Mary. When you speak it is as though someone else is speaking.

  Mary: (Her voice a little strange) I know, my sister, I know. Whenever we speak it is someone else who is speaking.

  (There is a prolonged silence. Mary is faraway in her thoughts, and Martha watches her half-curiously. Lazarus enters, coming from the hills, back left. He throws himself upon the grass under the almond trees near the house.)

  Mary: (Running toward him) Oh Lazarus, you are tired and weary. You should not have walked so far.

  Lazarus: (Speaking absently) Walking, walking and going nowhere; seeking and finding nothing. But it is better to be among the hills.

  The Madman: Well, after all it is a cubit nearer to the other hills.

  Martha: (After brief silence) But you are not well, and you leave us all day long, and we are much concerned. What you came back, Lazarus, you made us happy. But in leaving us alone here you turn our happiness into anxiety.

  Lazarus: (Turning his face toward the hills) Did I leave you long this day? Strange that you should call a moment among the hills a separation. Did I truly stay more that a moment among the hills?

  Martha: You have been gone all day.

  Lazarus: To think, to think! A whole day among the hills! Who would believe it?

  (A silence. The mother enters, coming out from the house door.)

  Mother: Oh, my son, I am glad you have come back. It is late and the mist is gathering upon the hills. I feared for you my son.

  The Madman: They are afraid of the mist. And the mist is their beginning and the mist is their end.

  Lazarus: Yes, I have come back to you from the hills. The pity of it, the pity of it all.

  Mother: What is it Lazarus? What is the pity of it all?

  Lazarus: Nothing, mother. Nothing.

  Mother: You speak strangely. I do not understand you, Lazarus. You have said little since your home-coming. But whatever you have said has been strange to me.

  Martha: Yes, strange.

  (There is a pause.)

  Mother: And now the mist is gathering here. Let us go into the house. Come, my children.

  (The mother, after kissing Lazarus with wistful tenderness, enters the house.)

  Martha: Yes, there is a chill in the air. I must take my loom and my linen indoors.

  Mary: (sitting down beside Lazarus on the grass under the almond trees, and speaking to Martha) It is true the April evenings are not good for either your loom or your linen. Would you want me to help you take your loom indoors?

  Martha: No, no. I can do it alone. I have always done it alone.

  (Martha carries her loom into the house, then she returns for the linen, taking that in also. A wind passes by, shaking the almond tree, and a drift of petals falls over Mary and Lazarus.)

  Lazarus: Even spring would comfort us, and even the trees would weep for us. All there is on earth, if all there is on earth could know our downfall and our grief, would pity us and weep for us.

  Mary: But spring is with us, and though veiled with the veil of sorrow, yet it is spring. Let us not speak of pity. Let us rather accept both our spring and our sorrow with gratitude. And let us wonder in sweet silence at Him who gave you life yet yielded His own life. Let us not speak of pity, Lazarus.

  Lazarus: Pity, pity that I should be torn away from a thousand thousand years of heart’s desire, a thousand thousand years of heart’s hunger. Pity that after a thousand thousand springs I am turned to this winter.

  Mary: What do you mean, my brother? Why do you speak of a thousand thousand springs? You were but three days away from us. Three short days. But our sorrow was indeed longer than three days.

  Lazarus: Three days? Three centuries, three aeons! All of time! All of time with the one my soul loved before time began.

  The Madman: Yes, three days, three centuries, three aeons. Strange they would always weigh and measure. It is always a sundial and a pair of scales.

  Mary: (In amazement) The one you soul loved before time began? Lazarus, why do you say these things? It is but a dream you dreamed in another garden. Now we are here in this garden, a stone’s throw from Jerusalem. We are here. And you know well, my brother, that our Master would have you be with us in this awakening to dream of life and love; and He would have you an ardent disciple, a living witness of His glory.

  Lazarus: There is no dream here and the
re is no awakening. You and I and this garden are but an illusion, a shadow of the real. The awakening is there where I was with my beloved and the reality.

  Mary: (Rising) Your beloved?

  Lazarus: (Also rising) My beloved.

  The Madman: Yes, yes. His beloved, the space virgin, the beloved of everyman.

  Mary: But where is your beloved? Who is your beloved?

  Lazarus: My twin heart whom I sought here and did not find. Then death, the angel with winged feet, came and led my longing to her longing, and I lived with her in the very heart of God. And I became nearer to her and she to me, and we were one. We were a sphere that shines in the sun; and we were a song among the stars. All this, Mary, all this and more, till a voice, a voice from the depths, the voice of a world called me; and that which was inseparable was torn asunder. And the thousand thousand years with my beloved in space could not guard me from the power of that voice which called me back.

  Mary: (Looking unto the sky) O blessed angels of our silent hours, make me to understand this thing! I would not be an alien in this new land discovered by death. Say more, my brother, go on. I believe in my heart I can follow you.

  The Madman: Follow him, if you can, little woman. Shall the turtle follow the stag?

  Lazarus: I was a stream and I sought the sea where my beloved dwells, and when I reached the sea I was brought to the hills to run again among the rocks. I was a song imprisoned in silence, longing for the heart of my beloved, and when the winds of heaven released me and uttered me in that green forest I was recaptured by a voice, and I was turned again into silence. I was a root in the dark earth, and I became a flower and then a fragrance in space rising to enfold my beloved, and I was caught and gathered by hand, and I was made a root again, a root in the dark earth.

  The Madman: If you are a root you can always escape the tempests in the branches. And it is good to be a running stream even after you have reached the sea. Of course it is good for water to run upward.

  Mary: (To herself) Oh strange, passing strange! (To Lazarus) But my brother it is good to be a running stream, and it is not good to be a song not yet sung, and it is good to be a root in the dark earth. The Master knew all this and He called you back to us that we may know there is no veil between life and death. Do you not see how one word uttered in love may bring together elements scattered by an illusion called death? Believe and have faith, for only in faith, which is our deeper knowledge, can you find comfort.

  Lazarus: Comfort! Comfort the treacherous, the deadly! Comfort that cheats our senses and makes us slaves to the passing hour! I would not have comfort. I would have passion! I would burn in the cool space with my beloved. I would be in the boundless space with my mate, my other self. O Mary, Mary, you were once my sister, and we knew one another even when our nearest kin knew us not. Now listen to me, listen to me with your heart.

 

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