THE PROPHET & THE GARDEN OF THE PROPHET (With Original Illustrations). Kahlil Gibran

he answered and said:

      Build of your imaginings a bower in the wilderness ere you build a house within the city walls.

      For even as you have home-comings in your twilight, so has the wanderer in you, the ever distant and alone.

      Your house is your larger body.

      It grows in the sun and sleeps in the stillness of the night; and it is not dreamless. Does not your house dream? And dreaming, leave the city for grove or hilltop?

      Would that I could gather your houses into my hand, and like a sower scatter them in forest and meadow.

      Would the valleys were your streets, and the green paths your alleys, that you might seek one another through vineyards, and come with the fragrance of the earth in your garments.

      But these things are not yet to be.

      In their fear your forefathers gathered you too near together. And that fear shall endure a little longer. A little longer shall your city walls separate your hearths from your fields.

      And tell me, people of Orphalese, what have you in these houses? And what is it you guard with fastened doors?

      Have you peace, the quiet urge that reveals your power?

      Have you remembrances, the glimmering arches that span the summits of the mind?

      Have you beauty, that leads the heart from things fashioned of wood and stone to the holy mountain?

      Tell me, have you these in your houses?

      Or have you only comfort, and the lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and becomes a host, and then a master?

      Ay, and it becomes a tamer, and with hook and scourge makes puppets of your larger desires.

      Though its hands are silken, its heart is of iron.

      It lulls you to sleep only to stand by your bed and jeer at the dignity of the flesh.

      It makes mock of your sound senses, and lays them in thistledown like fragile vessels.

      Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul, and then walks grinning in the funeral.

      But you, children of space, you restless in rest, you shall not be trapped nor tamed.

      Your house shall be not an anchor but a mast.

      It shall not be a glistening film that covers a wound, but an eyelid that guards the eye.

      You shall not fold your wings that you may pass through doors, nor bend your heads that they strike not against a ceiling, nor fear to breathe lest walls should crack and fall down.

      You shall not dwell in tombs made by the dead for the living.

      And though of magnificence and splendour, your house shall not hold your secret nor shelter your longing.

      For that which is boundless in you abides in the mansion of the sky, whose door is the morning mist, and whose windows are the songs and the silences of night.

       Clothes

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      And the weaver said, "Speak to us of Clothes."

      And he answered:

      Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful.

      And though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy you may find in them a harness and a chain.

      Would that you could meet the sun and the wind with more of your skin and less of your raiment,

      For the breath of life is in the sunlight and the hand of life is in the wind.

      Some of you say, "It is the north wind who has woven the clothes to wear."

      But shame was his loom, and the softening of the sinews was his thread.

      And when his work was done he laughed in the forest.

      Forget not that modesty is for a shield against the eye of the unclean.

      And when the unclean shall be no more, what were modesty but a fetter and a fouling of the mind?

      And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.

       Buying & Selling

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      And a merchant said, "Speak to us of Buying and Selling."

      And he answered and said:

      To you the earth yields her fruit, and you shall not want if you but know how to fill your hands.

      It is in exchanging the gifts of the earth that you shall find abundance and be satisfied.

      Yet unless the exchange be in love and kindly justice, it will but lead some to greed and others to hunger.

      When in the market place you toilers of the sea and fields and vineyards meet the weavers and the potters and the gatherers of spices, -

      Invoke then the master spirit of the earth, to come into your midst and sanctify the scales and the reckoning that weighs value against value.

      And suffer not the barren-handed to take part in your transactions, who would sell their words for your labour.

      To such men you should say,

      "Come with us to the field, or go with our brothers to the sea and cast your net;

      For the land and the sea shall be bountiful to you even as to us."

      And if there come the singers and the dancers and the flute players, - buy of their gifts also.

      For they too are gatherers of fruit and frankincense, and that which they bring, though fashioned of dreams, is raiment and food for your soul.

      And before you leave the marketplace, see that no one has gone his way with empty hands.

      For the master spirit of the earth shall not sleep peacefully upon the wind till the needs of the least of you are satisfied.