Gibran Stories Omnibus

distance.

     
  And he said:

  Patient, over patient, is the captain of my ship.

  The wind blows, and restless are the sails;

  Even the rudder begs direction;

  Yet quietly my captain awaits my silence.

  And these my mariners, who have heard the choir of the greater sea, they too have heard me patiently.

  Now they shall wait no longer.

  I am ready.
The stream has reached the sea, and once more the great mother holds her son against her breast.
Fare you well, people of Orphalese. This day has ended. It is closing upon us even as the water-lily upon its own to-morrow. What was given us here we shall keep, And if it suffices not, then again must we come together and together stretch our hands unto the giver. Forget not that I shall come back to you. A little while, and my longing shall gather dust and foam for another body. A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me. Farewell to you and the youth I have spent with you. It was but yesterday we met in a dream. You have sung to me in my aloneness, and I of your longings have built a tower in the sky. But now our sleep has fled and our dream is over, and it is no longer dawn.
The noontide is upon us and our half waking has turned to fuller day, and we must part. If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more, we shall speak again together and you shall sing to me a deeper song. And if our hands should meet in another dream we shall build another tower in the sky.
So saying he made a signal to the seamen, and straightaway they weighed anchor and cast the ship loose from its moorings, and they moved eastward. And a cry came from the people as from a single heart, and it rose into the dusk and was carried out over the sea like a great trumpeting. Only Almitra was silent, gazing after the ship until it had vanished into the mist. And when all the people were dispersed she still stood alone upon the sea-wall, remembering in her heart his saying:
"A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me."



----
The Madman: His Parables and Poems

Kahlil Gibran
         
     
     This page formatted 2005 Munsey's.
     
     
http://www.munseys.com
     
     
HOW I BECAME A MADMAN
     
GOD
     
MY FRIEND
     
THE SCARECROW
     
THE SLEEP-WALKERS
     
THE WISE DOG
     
THE TWO HERMITS
     
ON GIVING AND TAKING
     
THE SEVEN SELVES
     
WAR
     
THE FOX
     
THE WISE KING
     
AMBITION
     
THE NEW PLEASURE
     
THE OTHER LANGUAGE
     
THE POMEGRANATE
     
THE TWO CAGES
     
THE THREE ANTS
     
THE GRAVE-DIGGER
     
ON THE STEPS OF THE TEMPLE
     
THE BLESSED CITY
     
THE GOOD GOD AND THE EVIL GOD
     
DEFEAT
     
NIGHT AND THE MADMAN
     
FACES
     
THE GREATER SEA
     
CRUCIFIED
     
THE ASTRONOMER
     
THE GREAT LONGING
     
SAID A BLADE OF GRASS
     
THE EYE
     
THE TWO LEARNED MEN
     
WHEN MY SORROW WAS BORN
     
AND WHEN MY JOY WAS BORN
     
“THE PERFECT WORLD”
----
This eBook was produced by: Stuart kidd
Original file Courtesy of Kahlil Gibran Online—www.kahlil.org

HOW I BECAME A MADMAN
         
      You ask me how I became a madman. It happened thus: One day, long
before many gods were born, I woke from a deep sleep and found all my
masks were stolen,-the seven masks I have fashioned an worn in seven
lives,-I ran maskless through the crowded streets shouting, “Thieves,
thieves, the cursed thieves.”
      Men and women laughed at me and some ran to their houses in fear of
me.
      And when I reached the market place, a youth standing on a house-top
cried, “He is a madman.” I looked up to behold him; the sun kissed my
own naked face for the first time. For the first time the sun kissed my
own naked face and my soul was inflamed with love for the sun, and I
wanted my masks no more. And as if in a trance I cried, “Blessed,
blessed are the thieves who stole my masks.”
      Thus I became a madman.
      And I have found both freedom of loneliness and the safety from
being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us.
      But let me not be too proud of my safety. Even a Thief in a jail is
safe from another thief.

GOD
         
      In the ancient days, when the first quiver of speech came to my
lips, I ascended the holy mountain and spoke unto God, saying, “Master,
I am thy slave. Thy hidden will is my law and I shall obey thee for
ever more.”