Gibran Stories Omnibus

before me like a column of light. She was the Eve of
my heart who filled it with secrets and wonders and made me understand
the meaning of life.
      The first Eve led Adam out of Paradise by her own will, while Selma
made me enter willingly into the paradise of pure love and virtue by
her sweetness and love; but what happened to the first man also
happened to me, and the fiery word which chased Adam out of Paradise
was like the one which frightened me by its glittering edge and forced
me away from paradise of my love without having disobeyed any order or
tasted the fruit of the forbidden tree.
      Today, after many years have passed, I have nothing left out of that
beautiful dream except painful memories flapping like invisible wings
around me, filling the depths of my heart with sorrow, and bringing
tears to my eyes; and my beloved, beautiful Selma, is dead and nothing
is left to commemorate her except my broken heart and tomb surrounded
by cypress trees. That tomb and this heart are all that is left to bear
witness of Selma.
      The silence that guards the tomb does not reveal God's secret in the
obscurity of the coffin, and the rustling of the branches whose roots
suck the body's elements do not tell the mysteries of the grave, by the
agonized sighs of my heart announce to the living the drama which love,
beauty, and death have performed.
      Oh, friends of my youth who are scattered in the city of Beirut,
when you pass by the cemetery near the pine forest, enter it silently
and walk slowly so the tramping of your feet will not disturb the
slumber of the dead, and stop humbly by Selma's tomb and greet the
earth that encloses her corpse and mention my name with deep sigh and
say to yourself, “here, all the hopes of Gibran, who is living as
prisoner of love beyond the seas, were buried. On this spot he lost his
happiness, drained his tears, and forgot his smile.”
      By that tomb grows Gibran's sorrow together with the cypress trees,
and above the tomb his spirit flickers every night commemorating Selma,
joining the branches of the trees in sorrowful wailing, mourning and
lamenting the going of Selma, who, yesterday was a beautiful tune on
the lips of life and today is a silent secret in the bosom of the
earth.
      Oh, comrades of my youth! I appeal to you in the names of those
virgins whom your hearts have loved, to lay a wreath of flowers on the
forsaken tomb of my beloved, for the flowers you lay on Selma's tomb
are like falling drops of dew for the eyes of dawn on the leaves of
withering rose.

SILENT SORROW
         
      My neighbours, you remember the dawn of youth with pleasure and
regret its passing; but I remember it like a prisoner who recalls the
bars and shackles of his jail. You speak of those years between infancy
and youth as a golden era free from confinement and cares, but I call
those years an era of silent sorrow which dropped as a seed into my
heart and grew with it and could find no outlet to the world of
Knowledge and wisdom until love came and opened the heart's doors and
lighted its corners. Love provided me with a tongue and tears. You
people remember the gardens and orchids and the meeting places and
street corners that witnessed your games and heard your innocent
whispering; and I remember, too, the beautiful spot in North Lebanon.
Every time I close my eyes I see those valleys full of magic and
dignity and those mountains covered with glory and greatness trying to
reach the sky. Every time I shut my ears to the clamour of the city I
hear the murmur of the rivulets and the rustling of the branches. All
those beauties which I speak of now and which I long to see, as a child
longs for his mother's breast, wounded my spirit, imprisoned in the
darkness of youth, as a falcon suffers in its cage when it sees a flock
of birds flying freely in the spacious sky. Those valleys and hills
fired my imagination, but bitter thoughts wove round my heart a net of
hopelessness.
      Every time I went to the fields I returned disappointed, without
understanding the cause of my disappointment. Every time I looked at
the grey sky I felt my heart contract. Every time I heard the singing
of the birds and babbling of the spring I suffered without
understanding the reason for my suffering. It is said that
unsophistication makes a man empty and that emptiness makes him
carefree. It may be true