Gibran Stories Omnibus

and drowsing
     
Behold a brighter world
     
And creatures more starry supple to my mind.
     
     
      THIRD GOD
     
Now I will rise and strip me of time and space,
     
And I will dance in that field untrodden,
     
And the dancer's feet will move with my feet;
     
And I will sing in that higher air,
     
And a human voice will throb within my voice.
     
We shall pass into the twilight;
     
Perchance to wake to the dawn of another world.
     
But love shall stay,
     
And his finger-marks shall not be erased.
     
The blessed forge burns,
     
The sparks rise, and each spark is a sun.
     
Better it is for us, and wiser,
     
To seek a shadowed nook and sleep in our earth divinity,
     
And let love, human and frail, command the coming day.
     
     
     
     
     
     



----
Lazarus and his Beloved

Kahlil Gibran
         
     
     This page formatted 2005 Munsey's.
     
     
http://www.munseys.com
     
This eBook was produced by: Stuart kidd
Original file Courtesy of Kahlil Gibran Online—www.kahlil.org
     
     
      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 Manday, 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
     
     
      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