Gibran Stories Omnibus

brothers,
     
Down in the myrtle grove
     
A girl is dancing to the moon,
     
A thousand dew-stars are in her hair,
     
About her feet a thousand wings.
     
     
      SECOND GOD
     
We have planted man, our vine, and tilled the soil
     
In the purple mist of the first dawn.
     
We watched the lean branches grow,
     
And through the days of seasonless years
     
We nursed the infant leaves.
     
From the angry element we shielded the bud,
     
And against all dark spirits we guarded the flower.
     
And now that our vine hath yielded the grape
     
You will not take it to the winepress and fill the cup.
     
Whose mightier hand than yours shall reap the fruit?
     
And what nobler end than your thirst awaits the wine?
     
Man is food for the gods,
     
And the glory of man begins
     
When his aimless breath is sucked by gods' hallowed lips.
     
All that is human counts for naught if human it remain;
     
The innocence of childhood, and the sweet ecstasy of youth,
     
The passion of stern manhood, and the wisdom of old age;
     
The splendour of kings and the triumph of warriors,
     
The fame of poets and the honour of dreamers and saints;
     
All these and all that lieth therein is bred for gods.
     
And naught but bread ungraced shall it be
     
If the gods raise it not to their mouths.
     
And as the mute grain turns to love songs when swallowed by the
     
nightingale,
     
Even so as bread of gods shall man taste godhead.
     
     
      FIRST GOD
     
Aye, man is meat for gods!
     
And all that is man shall come upon the gods' eternal board!
     
The pain of child-bearing and the agony of childbirth,
     
The blind cry of the infant that pierces the naked night,
     
And the anguish of the mother wrestling with the sleep she craves,
     
To pour life exhausted from her breast;
     
The flaming breath of youth tormented,
     
And the burdened sobs of passion unspent;
     
The dripping brows of manhood tilling the barren land,
     
And the regret of pale old age when life against life's will
     
Calls to the grave.
     
Behold this is man!
     
A creature bred on hunger and made food for hungry gods.
     
A vine that creeps in dust beneath the feet of deathless death.
     
The flower that blooms in nights of evil shadows;
     
The grape of mournful days, and days of terror and shame.
     
And yet you would have me eat and drink.
     
You would bid me sit amongst shrouded faces
     
And draw my life from stony lips
     
And from withered hands receive my eternity.
     
     
      THIRD GOD
     
Brothers, my dreaded brothers,
     
Thrice deep the youth is singing,
     
And thrice higher is his song.
     
His voice shakes the forest
     
And pierces the sky,
     
And scatters the slumbering of earth.
     
     
      SECOND GOD
     
(Always unhearing)
     
The bee hums harshly in your ears,
     
And foul is the honey to your lips.
     
Fain would I comfort you,
     
But how shall I?
     
Only the abyss listens when gods call unto gods,
     
For measureless is the gulf that lies between divinities,
     
And windless is the space.
     
Yet I would comfort you,
     
I would make serene your clouded sphere;
     
And though equal we are in power and judgement,
     
I would counsel you.
     
When out of chaos came the earth, and we, sons of the beginning,
     
beheld each other in the lustless light, we breathed the first
hushed,
     
tremulous sound that quickened the currents of air and sea.
     
Then we walked, hand in hand, upon the grey infant world, and out
of
     
the echoes of our first drowsy steps time was born, a fourth
divinity,
     
that sets his feet upon our footprints, shadowing our thoughts and
     
desires, and seeing only with our eyes.
     
And unto earth came life, and unto life came the spirit, the winged
     
melody of the universe. And we ruled life and spirit, and none save
us
     
knew the measure of the years nor the weight of years' nebulous
     
dreams, till we, at noontide of the seventh aeon, gave the sea in
     
marriage to the sun.
     
And from the inner chamber of their nuptial ecstasy, we brought
man, a
     
creature who, though yielding and infirm, bears ever the marks of
his
     
parentage.
     
Through man who walks earth with eyes upon the stars, we find
pathways
     
to earth's distant regions; and of man, the humble reed growing
beside
     
dark waters, we make a flute through whose hollowed heart we pour
our
     
voice to the silence-bound world. From the sunless north to the
     
sun-smitten sand of the south.
     
From the