Treasured Writings of Kahlil Gibran

by Kahlil Gibran

  History and the Nation

  By the side of a rivulet that meandered among the rocks at the foot of Lebanon’s Mountain sat a shepherdess surrounded by her flock of lean sheep grazing upon dry grass. She looked into the distant twilight as if the future were passing before her. Tears had jewelled her eyes like dew-drops adorning flowers. Sorrow had caused her lips to open that it might enter and occupy her sighing heart.

  After sunset, as the knolls and hills wrapped themselves in shadow, History stood before the maiden. He was an old man whose white hair fell like snow over his breast and shoulders, and in his right hand he held a sharp sickle. In a voice like the roaring sea he said, “Peace unto you, Syria.”*

  The virgin rose, trembling with fear. “What do you wish of me, History?” she asked. Then she pointed to her sheep. “This is the remnant of a healthy flock that once filled this valley. This is all that your covetousness has left me. Have you come now to sate your greed on that?

  “These plains that were once so fertile have been trodden to barren dust by your trampling feet. My cattle that once grazed upon flowers and produced rich milk, now gnaw thistles that leave them gaunt and dry.

  “Fear God, oh History, and afflict me no more. The sight of you has made me detest life, and the cruelty of your sickle has caused me to love Death.

  “Leave me in my solitude to drain the cup of sorrow—my best wine. Go, History, to the West where Life’s wedding feast is being celebrated. Here let me lament the bereavement you have prepared for me.”

  Concealing his sickle under the folds of his garment, History looked upon her as a loving father looks upon his child, and said, “Oh Syria, what I have taken from you were my own gifts. Know that your sister-nations are entitled to a part of the glory which was yours. I must give to them what I gave you. Your plight is like that of Egypt, Persia, and Greece, for each one of them also has a lean flock and dry pasture. Oh Syria, that which you call degradation is an indispensable sleep from which you will draw strength. The flower does not return to life save through death, and love does not grow except after separation.”

  The old man came close to the maiden, stretched forth his hand and said, “Shake my hand, oh Daughter of the Prophets.” And she shook his hand and looked at him from behind a screen of tears and said, “Farewell, History, farewell.” And he responded, “Until we meet again, Syria, until we meet again.”

  And the old man disappeared like swift lightning, and the shepherdess called her sheep and started on her way, saying to herself, “Shall there be another meeting?”

  * At the writing of this story Lebanon and Syria were one country known as Syria.

  The Speechless Animal

  In the glance of the speechless animal there is a discourse that only the soul of the wise can really understand.

  AN INDIAN POET

  In the twilight of a beautiful day, when fancy seized upon my mind, I passed by the edge of the city and tarried before the wreck of an abandoned house of which only rubble was left.

  In the rubble I saw a dog lying upon dirt and ashes. Sores covered his skin, and sickness racked his feeble body. Staring now and then at the setting sun, his sorrowful eyes expressed humiliation, despair, and misery.

  I walked slowly toward him wishing that I knew animal speech so that I might console him with my sympathy. But my approach only terrified him, and he tried to rise on his palsied legs. Falling, he turned a look on me in which helpless wrath was mingled with supplication. In that glance was speech more lucid than man’s and more moving than a woman’s tears. This is what I understood him to say:

  “Man, I have suffered through illness caused by your brutality and persecution.

  “I have run from your bruising foot and taken refuge here, for dust and ashes are gentler than man’s heart, these ruins less melancholy than the soul of man. Begone, you intruder from the world of misrule and injustice.

  “I am a miserable creature who served the son of Adam with faith and loyalty. I was man’s faithful companion. I guarded him day and night. I grieved during his absence and welcomed him with joy upon his return. I was contented with the crumbs that fell from his board, and happy with the bones that his teeth had stripped. But when I grew old and ill, he drove me from his home and left me to merciless boys of the alleys.

  “Oh son of Adam, I see the similarity between me and your fellow men when age disables them. There are soldiers who fought for their country when they were in the prime of life, and who later tilled its soil. But now that the winter of their life has come and they are useful no longer, they are cast aside.”

  “I also see a resemblance between my lot and that of a woman who, during the days of her lovely maidenhood enlivened the heart of a young man; and who then, as a mother, devoted her life to her children. But now, grown old, she is ignored and avoided. How oppressive you are, son of Adam, and how cruel!”

  Thus spoke the speechless animal whom my heart had understood.

  Poets and Poems

  If my fellow poets had imagined that the necklaces of verses they composed, and the stanzas whose meters they had strengthened and joined together, would some day become reins to hold back talent, they would have torn up their manuscripts.

  If Al-Mutanabbi,* the prophet, had prophesied, and Al-Farid,** the seer, had foreseen that what they had written would become a source for the barren and a forced guide to our poets of today, they would have poured out their inks in the wells of Oblivion, and broken their quills with the hands of Negligence.

  If the spirits of Homer, Virgil, Al-Maary,*** and Milton had known that poetry would become a lapdog of the rich, they would have foresaken a world in which this could occur.

  I grieve to hear the language.of the spirits prattled by the tongues of the ignorant. It slays my soul to see the wine of the muses flow over the pens of the pretenders.

  Neither am I found alone in the vale of Resentment. Say that I am one of the many who see the frog puffed up to imitate the buffalo.

  Poetry, my dear friends, is a sacred incarnation of a smile. Poetry is a sigh that dries the tears. Poetry is a spirit who dwells in the soul, whose nourishment is the heart, whose wine is affection. Poetry that comes not in this form is a false messiah.

  Oh spirits of the poets, who watch over us from the heaven of Eternity, we go to the altars you have adorned with the pearls of your thoughts and the gems of your souls because we are oppressed by the clang of steel and the clamor of factories. Therefore our poems are as heavy as freight trains and as annoying as steam whistles.

  And you, the real poets, forgive us. We belong in the New World where men run after worldly goods; and poetry, too, is a commodity today, and not a breath of immortality.

  * The word Al-Mutanabbi means the one who divines or predicts. He was a famous Arabian poet whose poems were translated into several languages.

  ** An outstanding Arabian poet and philosopher.

  *** A ninth century Arabian poet who became blind at the age of four and was looked upon as a genius.

  Among the Ruins

  The moon dropped its gauzy veil over the gardens of the City of the Sun,* and silence swathed all beings. The fallen palaces looked menacing, like sneering monsters.

  At that hour two phantoms, like vapor rising from the blue water of a lake, sat on a marble pillar pondering the scene which was like a realm of magic. One lifted his head, and with a voice that set echoes reverberating, said:”

  “These are the remnants of temples I built for you, my beloved, and this is the rubble of a palace I erected for your enjoyment. Nothing else remains to tell the nations of the glory to which I devoted my life, and of the pomp for which I exploited the weak.

  “Think and ponder, my beloved, upon the elements that triumphed over my city, and upon Time that thus belittled my efforts.

  “Oblivion has submerged the empire I established, and naught is left save atoms of Jove which your beauty has created, and effects of beauty which your love has enlivened.


  “I erected a temple in Jerusalem and the priests sanctified it, but time has destroyed it. But in my heart the altar I built for Love was consecrated by God and sustained against the powers of destruction.

  “Men said of me, ‘What a wise king he is!’ The angels said, ‘How trifling is his wisdom.’ But the angels rejoiced when I found you, my beloved, and sang for you the song of Love and longing; though men heard no notes of my hymn….

  “The days of my reign were barriers to my understanding of Love and of the beauty of life, but when I saw you, Love awoke and demolished those barriers, and I lamented the life I spent considering everything under the sun as vanity.

  “As Love enlightened me, I became humble both before the tribes who had feared my military might and before my own people.

  “But when death came, it buried my deadly weapons in earth and carried my love to God.”

  And the other phantom said, “As the flower obtains life and aromatic scent from earth, so the soul extracts wisdom and strength from the weakness and errors of matter.”

  Then the two fused into one and walked away, saying:

  “Eternity keeps naught but Love,

  For Love is like Eternity.”

  * The ruined City of Baalbek.

  At the Door of the Temple

  I purified my lips with the sacred fire, to speak of Love, but could find no words.

  When Love became known to me, the words lapsed into a faint gasping, and the song in my heart into deep silence.

  Oh you who asked me about Love, whom I convinced of its mysteries and wonders, now since Love has wrapped me in its veil, I come to ask you about Love’s course and merit.

  Who can answer my questions? I ask about that which is in me; I seek to be informed about myself.

  Who among you can reveal my inner self to myself and my soul to my soul?

  Tell me, for Love’s sake, what is that flame which burns in my heart and devours my strength and dissolves my will?

  What are those hidden soft and rough hands that grasp my soul; what is that wine mixed of bitter joy and sweet pain that suffuses my heart?

  What are those wings that hover over my pillow in the silence of Night, and keep me awake, watching no one knows what?

  What is the invisible thing I stare at, the incomprehensible thing that I ponder, the feeling that cannot be sensed?

  In my sighs is a grief more beautiful than the echo of laughter and more rapturous than joy.

  Why do I surrender myself to an unknown power that slays me and revives me until Dawn rises and fills my chamber with its light?

  Phantoms of wakefulness tremble between my seared eyelids, and shadows of dreams hover over my stony bed.

  What is that which we call Love? Tell me, what is that secret hidden within the ages yet which permeates all consciousness?

  What is this consciousness that is at once origin and result of everything?

  What is this vigil that fashions from Life and Death a dream, stranger than Life and deeper than Death?

  Tell me, friends, is there one among you who would not awake from the slumber of Life if Love touched his soul with its fingertip?

  Which one of you would not leave his father and mother at the call of the virgin whom his heart loves?

  Who among you would not sail the distant seas, cross the deserts, and climb the topmost peak to meet the woman whom his soul has chosen?

  What youth’s heart would not follow to the ends of the world the maiden whose aromatic breath, sweet voice, and magic-soft hands have enraptured his soul?

  What being would not burn his heart as incense before a god who listens to his supplications and grants his prayer?

  Yesterday I stood at the temple door interrogating the passers-by about the mystery and merit of Love.

  And before me passed an old man with an emaciated and melancholy face, who sighed and said:

  “Love is a natural weakness bestowed upon us by the first man.”

  But a virile youth retorted:

  “Love joins our present with the past and the future.”

  Then a woman with a tragic face sighed and said:

  “Love is a deadly poison injected by black vipers, that crawl from the caves of hell. The poison seems fresh as dew and the thirsty soul eagerly drinks it; but after the first intoxication the drinker sickens and dies a slow death.”

  Then a beautiful, rosy-cheeked damsel smilingly said:

  “Love is wine served by the brides of Dawn which strengthens strong souls and enables them to ascend to the stars.”

  After her a black-robed, bearded man, frowning, said:

  “Love is the blind ignorance with which youth begins and ends.”

  Another, smiling, declared:

  “Love is a divine knowledge that enables men to see as much as the gods.”

  Then said a blind man, feeling his way with a cane:

  “Love is a blinding mist that keeps the soul from discerning the secret of existence, so that the heart sees only trembling phantoms of desire among the hills, and hears only echoes of cries from voiceless valleys.”

  A young man, playing on his viol, sang:

  “Love is a magic ray emitted from the burning core of the soul and illuminating the surrounding earth. It enables us to perceive Life as a beautiful dream between one awakening and another.”

  And a feeble ancient, dragging his feet like two rags, said, in quavering tones:

  “Love is the rest of the body in the quiet of the grave, the tranquility of the soul in the depth of Eternity.”

  And a five-year-old child, after him, said laughing:

  “Love is my father and mother, and no one knows Love save my father and mother.”

  And so, all who passed spoke of Love as the image of their hopes and frustrations, leaving it a mystery as before.

  Then I heard a voice within the temple:

  “Life is divided into two halves, one frozen, the other aflame; the burning half is Love.”

  Thereupon I entered the temple, kneeling, rejoicing, and praying:

  “Make me, O Lord, nourishment

  for the blazing flame …

  Make me, O God, food for the

  sacred fire … Amen.”

  Narcotics and Dissecting Knives

  “He is excessive and fanatic to the point of madness. Though he is an idealist, his literary aim is to poison the mind of the youths…. If men and women were to follow Gibran’s counsels on marriage, family ties would break, society would perish, and the world would become an inferno peopled by demons and devils.

  “His style is seductively beautiful, magnifying the danger of this inveterate enemy of mankind. Our counsel to the inhabitants of this blessed Mountain (Mount Lebanon) is to reject the insidious teachings of this anarchist and heretic and to burn his books, that his doctrines may not lead the innocent astray. We have read The Broken Wings and found it to be honeyed poison.”

  Such is what people say of me and they are right, for I am indeed a fanatic and I am inclined toward destruction as well as construction. There is hatred in my heart for that which my detractors sanctify, and love for that which they reject. And if I could uproot certain customs, beliefs, and traditions of the people, I would do so without hesitation. When they said my books were poison, they were speaking truth about themselves, for what I say is poison to them. But they falsified when they said I mix honey into it, for I apply the poison full strength and pour it from transparent glass. Those who call me an idealist becalmed in clouds are the very ones who turn away from the transparent glass they call poison, knowing that their stomachs cannot digest it.

  This may sound truculent, but is not truculence preferable to seductive pretense?

  The people of the Orient demand that the writer be like a bee always making honey. They are gluttonous for honey and prefer it to all other food.

  The people of the Orient want their poet to burn himself as incense before their sultans. The Eastern skies have become sickly with incense ye
t the people of the Orient have not had enough.

  They ask the world to learn their history, to study their antiquities, customs and traditions, and acquire their languages. They also expect those who know them not to repeat the words of Baidaba the Philosopher, Ben Rished, Ephraim Al-Syriani, and John of Damascus.

  In brief, the people of the Orient seek to make their past a justification and a bed of ease. They shun positive thinking and positive teachings and any knowledge of reality that might sting them and awake them from their slumber.

  The Orient is ill, but it has become so inured to its infirmities that it has come to see them as natural and even noble qualities that distinguish them above others. They consider one who lacks such qualities as incomplete and unfit for the divine gift of perfection.

  Numerous are the social healers in the Orient, and many are their patients who remain uncured but appear eased of their ills because they are under the effects of social narcotics. But these tranquilizers merely mask the symptoms.

  Such narcotics are distilled from many sources but the chief is the Oriental philosophy of submission to Destiny (the act of God). Another source is the cowardice of the social physicians who fear to aggravate pain by administration of drastic medicine.

  Here are some samples of these social tranquilizers:

  A husband and wife, for substantial reasons, find that hate has replaced love between them. After long mutual torment they separate. Immediately their parents meet and work out some agreement for the reconciliation of the estranged couple. First they ply the wife with falsehoods, then they work on the husband with similar deceits. Neither is convinced, but they are shamed into a pretense of peace. This cannot endure; soon the effects of the social narcotics have worn off, and the miserable pair return for further doses.