Gibran Stories Omnibus

them
hither.
The knot is untied.
The cord is cleaved.
And that which is neither food nor drink is withdrawn.
Approach, my hungry comrade;
The board is made ready.
And the fare, frugal and spare,
Is given with love.
Come, and dig your beak here, into the left side,
And tear out of its cage this smaller bird,
Whose wings can beat no more:
I would have it soar with you into the sky.
Come now, my friend, I am your host tonight,
And you my welcome guest.

     
       
     

BEYOND MY SOLITUDE
         
      Beyond my solitude is another solitude, and to him who dwells
therein my aloneness is a crowded market-place and my silence a
confusion of sounds.
      Too young am I and too restless to seek that above-solitude. The
voices of yonder valley still hold my ears and its shadows bar my way
and I cannot go.
      Beyond these hills is a grove of enchantment and to him who dwells
therein my peace is but a whirlwind and my enchantment an illusion.
      Too young am I and too riotous to seek that sacred grove. The taste
of blood is clinging in my mouth, and the bow and the arrows of my
fathers yet linger in my hand and I cannot go.
      Beyond this burdened self lives my freer self; and to him my dreams
are a battle fought in twilight and my desires the rattling of bones.
      Too young am I and too outraged to be my freer self.
      And how shall I become my freer self unless I slay my burdened
selves, or unless all men become free?
      How shall the eagle in me soar against the sun until my fledglings
leave the nest which I with my own beak have built for them?

THE LAST WATCH
         
      At high tide of night, when the first breath of dawn came upon the
wind, the forerunner, he who calls himself echo to a voice yet unheard,
left his bed-chamber and ascended to the roof of his house. Long he
stood and looked down upon the slumbering city. Then he raised his
head, and even as if the sleepless spirits of all those asleep had
gathered around him, he opened his lips and spoke, and he said:
      “My friends and neighbours and you who daily pass my gate, I would
speak to you in your sleep, and in the valley of your dreams I would
walk naked and unrestrained; for heedless are your waking hours and
deaf are your sound-burdened ears.
      “Long did I love you and overmuch.
      “I love the one among you as though he were all, and all as if you
were one. And in the spring of my heart I sang in your gardens, and in
the summer of my heart I watched at your threshing-floors.
      “Yea, I loved you all, the giant and the pygmy, the leper and the
anointed, and him who gropes in the dark even as him who dances his
days upon the mountains.
      “You, the strong, have I loved, though the marks of your iron hoofs
are yet upon my flesh; and you the weak, though you have drained my
faith and wasted my patience.
      “You the rich have I loved, while bitter was your honey to my mouth;
and you the poor, though you knew my empty-handed shame.
      “You the poet with the bowed lute and blind fingers, you have I
loved in self-indulgence; and you the scholar ever gathering rotted
shrouds in potters' fields.
      “You the priest I have loved, who sit in the silences of yesterday
questioning the fate of my tomorrow; and you the worshippers of gods
the images of your own desires.
      “You the thirsting woman whose cup is ever full, I have loved in
understanding; and you the woman of restless nights, you too I have
loved in pity.
      “You the talkative have I loved, saying, 'Life hath much to say';
and you the dumb have I loved, whispering to myself, 'Says he not in
silence that which I fain would hear in words?”
      “And you the judge and the critic, I have loved also; yet when you
have seen me crucified, you said, 'He bleeds rhythmically, and the
pattern his blood makes upon his white skin is beautiful to behold.'
      “Yea, I have loved you all, the young and the old, the trembling
reed and the oak.
      “But, alas, it was the over-abundance of my heart that turned you
from me. You would drink love from a cup, but not from a surging river.
You would hear love's faint murmur, but when love shouts you would
muffle your ears.
      “And because I have loved you all you have said, 'Too soft and
yielding is his heart, and too