Collected Poetical Works of Kahlil Gibran

by Kahlil Gibran

How mean am I when life gives me gold and I give you silver, and yet I deem myself generous.

  When you reach the heart of life you will find yourself not higher than the felon, and not lower than the prophet.

  Strange that you should pity the slow-footed and not the slow-minded,

  And the blind-eyed rather than the blind-hearted.

  It is wiser for the lame not to break his crutches upon the head of his enemy.

  How blind is he who gives you out of his pocket that he may take out of your heart.

  Life is a procession. The slow of foot finds it too swift and he steps out;

  And the swift of foot finds it too slow and he too steps out.

  If there is such a thing as sin some of us commit it backward following our forefathers’ footsteps;

  And some of us commit it forward by overruling our children.

  The truly good is he who is one with all those who are deemed bad.

  We are all prisoners but some of us are in cells with windows and some without.

  Strange that we all defend our wrongs with more vigor than we do our rights.

  Should we all confess our sins to one another we would all laugh at one another for our lack of originality.

  Should we all reveal our virtues we would also laugh for the same cause.

  An individual is above man-made laws until he commits a crime against man-made conventions; After that he is neither above anyone nor lower than anyone.

  Government is an agreement between you and myself. You and myself are often wrong.

  Crime is either another name of need or an aspect of a disease.

  Is there a greater fault than being conscious of the other person’s faults?

  If the other person laughs at you, you can pity him; but if you laugh at him you may never forgive yourself.

  If the other person injures you, you may forget the injury; but if you injure him you will always remember.

  In truth the other person is your most sensitive self given another body.

  How heedless you are when you would have men fly with your wings and you cannot even give them a feather.

  Once a man sat at my board and ate my bread and drank my wine and went away laughing at me.

  Then he came again for bread and wine, and I spurned him;

  And the angels laughed at me.

  Hate is a dead thing. Who of you would be a tomb?

  It is the honor of the murdered that he is not the murderer.

  The tribune of humanity is in its silent heart, never its talkative mind.

  They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold;

  And I deem them mad because they think my days have a price.

  They spread before us their riches of gold and silver, of ivory and ebony, and we spread before them our hearts and our spirits.;

  And yet they deem themselves the hosts and us the guests.

  ý

  I would not be the least among men with dreams and the desire to fulfill them, rather than the greatest with no dreams and no desires.

  The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.

  We are all climbing toward the summit of our hearts’ desire. Should the other climber steal your sack and your purse and wax fat on the one and heavy on the other, you should pity him;

  The climbing will be harder for his flesh, and the burden will make his way longer.

  And should you in your leanness see his flesh puffing upward, help him a step; it will add to your swiftness.

  You cannot judge any man beyond your knowledge of him, and how small is your knowledge.

  I would not listen to a conqueror preaching to the conquered.

  The truly free man is he who bears the load of the bond slave patiently.

  A thousand years ago my neighbor said to me, “I hate life, for it is naught but a thing of pain.”

  And yesterday I passed by a cemetery and saw life dancing upon his grave.

  Strife in nature is but disorder longing for order.

  Solitude is a silent storm that breaks down all our dead branches;

  Yet it sends our living roots deeper into the living heart of the living earth.

  Once I spoke of the sea to a brook, and the brook thought me but an imaginative exaggerator;

  And once I spoke of a brook to the sea, and the sea thought me but a depreciative defamer.

  How narrow is the vision that exalts the busyness of the ant above the singing of the grasshopper.

  The highest virtue here may be the least in another world.

  The deep and the high go to the depth or to the height in a straight line; only the spacious can move in circles. IF IT WERE not for our conception of weights and measures we would stand in awe of the firefly as we do before the sun.

  A scientist without imagination is a butcher with dull knives and out-worn scales.

  But what would you, since we are not all vegetarians?

  When you sing the hungry hears you with his stomach.

  Death is not nearer to the aged than to the new-born; neither is life.

  If indeed you must be candid, be candid beautifully; otherwise keep silent, for there is a man in our neighborhood who is dying.

  Mayhap a funeral among men is a wedding feast among the angels.

  A forgotten reality may die and leave in its will seven thousand actualities and facts to be spent in its funeral and the building of a tomb.

  In truth we talk only to ourselves, but sometimes we talk loud enough that others may hear us.

  The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.

  If the Milky Way were not within me how should I have seen it or known it?

  Unless I am a physician among physicians they would not believe that I am an astronomer.

  Perhaps the sea’s definition of a shell is the pearl.

  Perhaps time’s definition of coal is the diamond.

  Fame is the shadow of passion standing in the light.

  A root is a flower that disdains fame.

  There is neither religion nor science beyond beauty.

  Every great man I have known had something small in his make-up; and it was that small something which prevented inactivity or madness or suicide.

  The truly great man is he who would master no one, and who would be mastered by none.

  I would not believe that a man is mediocre simply because he kills the criminals and the prophets.

  Tolerance is love sick with the sickness of haughtiness.

  Worms will turn; but is it not strange that even elephants will yield?

  A disagreement may be the shortest cut between two minds.

  I am the flame and I am the dry bush, and one part of me consumes the other part.

  We are all seeking the summit of the holy moutain; but shall not our road be shorter if we consider the past a chart and not a guide?

  Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too self-ful to seek other than itself.

  Had I filled myself with all that you know what room should I have for all that you do not know?

  I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.

  A bigot is a stone-leaf orator.

  The silence of the envious is too noisy.

  When you reach the end of what you should know, you will be at the beginning of what you should sense.

  An exaggeration is a truth that has lost its temper.

  If you can see only what light reveals and hear only what sound announces,

  Then in truth you do not see nor do you hear.

  A fact i a truth unsexed.

  You cannot laugh and be unkind at the same time.

  The nearest to my heart are a king without a kingdom and a poor man who does not know how to beg.

  A shy failure is nobler than an immodest success.

  Dig anywhere in the earth an
d you will find a treasure, only you must dig with the faith of a peasant.

  Said a hunted fox followed by twenty horsemen and a pack of twenty hounds, “Of course they will kill me. But how poor and how stupid they must be. Surely it would not be worth while for twenty foxes riding on twenty asses and accompanied by twenty wolves to chase and kill one man.”

  It is the mind in us that yields to the laws made by us, but never the spirit in us.

  A traveler am I and a navigator, and every day I discover a new region within my soul.

  A woman protested saying, “Of course it was a righteous war. My son fell in it.”

  I said to Life, “I would hear Death speak.”

  And Life raised her voice a little higher and said, “You hear him now.”

  When you have solved all the mysteries of life you long for death, for it is but another mystery of life.

  Birth and death are the two noblest expressions of bravery.

  My friend, you and I shall remain strangers unto life,

  And unto one another, and each unto himself,

  Until the day when you shall speak and I shall listen

  Deeming your voice my own voice;

  And when I shall stand before you

  Thinking myself standing before a mirror.

  They say to me, “Should you know yourself you would know all men.”

  And I say, “Only when I seek all men shall I know myself.” MAN IS TWO men; one is awake in darkness, the other is asleep in light.

  A hermit is one who renounces the world of fragments that he may enjoy the world wholly and without interruption.

  There lies a green field between the scholar and the poet; should the scholar cross it he becomes a wise man; should the poet cross it, he becomes a prophet.

  Yestereve I saw philosophers in the market-place carrying their heads in baskets, and crying aloud, “Wisdom! Wisdom for sale!”

  Poor philosophers! They must needs sell their heads to feed their hearts.

  Said a philosopher to a street sweeper, “I pity you. Yours is a hard and dirty task.”

  And the street sweeper said, “Thank you, sir. But tell me what is your task?”

  And the philosopher answered saying, “I study man’s mind, his deeds and his desires.”

  Then the street sweeper went on with his sweeping and said with a smile, “I pity you too.”

  He who listens to truth is not less than he who utters truth.

  No man can draw the line between necessities and luxuries. Only the angels can do that, and the angels are wise and wistful.

  Perhaps the angels are our better thought in space.

  He is the true prince who finds his throne in the heart of the dervish.

  Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.

  In truth you owe naught to any man. You owe all to all men.

  All those who have lived in the past live with us now. Surely none of us would be an ungracious host.

  He who longs the most lives the longest.

  They say to me, “A bird in the hand is worth ten in the bush.”

  But I say, “A bird and a feather in the bush is worth more than ten birds in the hand.”

  Your seeking after that feather is life with winged feet; nay, it is life itself.

  There are only two elements here, beauty and truth; beauty in the hearts of lovers, and truth in the arms of the tillers of the soil.

  Great beauty captures me, but a beauty still greater frees me even from itself.

  Beauty shines brighter in the heart of him who longs for it than in the eyes of him who sees it.

  I admire him who reveals his mind to me; I honor him who unveils his dreams. But why am I shy, and even a little ashamed before him who serves me?

  The gifted were once proud in serving princes.

  Now they claim honor in serving paupers.

  The angels know that too many practical men eat their bread with the sweat of the dreamer’s brow.

  Wit is often a mask. If you could tear it you would find either a genius irritated or cleverness juggling.

  The understanding attributes to me understanding and the dull, dullness. I think they are both right.

  Only those with secrets in their hearts could divine the secrets in our hearts.

  He who would share your pleasure but not your pain shall lose the key to one of the seven gates of Paradise.

  Yes, there is a Nirvanah; it is in leading your sheep to a green pasture, and in putting your child to sleep, and in writing the last line of your poem.

  We choose our joys and our sorrows long before we experience them.

  Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.

  When either your joy or your sorrow becomes great the world becomes small.

  Desire is half of life; idifference is half of death.

  The bitterest thing in our today’s sorrow is the memory of our yesterday’s joy.

  They say to me, “You must needs choose between the pleasures of this world and the peace of the next world.”

  And I say to them, “I have chosen both the delights of this world and the peace of the next. For I know in my heart that the Supreme Poet wrote but one poem, and it scans perfectly, and it also rhymes perfectly.”

  Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.

  When you reach your height you shall desire but only for desire; and you shall hunger, for hunger; and you shall thirst for greater thirst.

  If you reveal your secrets to the wind you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.

  The flowers of spring are winter’s dreams related at the breakfast table of the angels.

  Said a skunk to a tube-rose, “See how swiftly I run, while you cannot walk nor even creep.”

  Said the tube-rose to the skunk, “Oh, most noble swift runner, please run swiftly!”

  Turtles can tell more about roads than hares.

  Strange that creatures without backbones have the hardest shells.

  The most talkative is the least intelligent, and there is hardly a difference between an orator and an auctioneer.

  Be grateful that you do not have to live down the renown of a father nor the wealth of an uncle.

  But above all be grateful that no one will have to live down either your renown or your wealth.

  Only when a juggler misses catching his ball does he appeal to me.

  The envious praises me unknowingly.

  Long were you a dream in your mother’s sleep, and then she woke to give you birth.

  The germ of the race is in your mother’s longing.

  My father and mother desired a child and they begot me.

  And I wanted a mother and a father and I begot night and the sea.

  Some of our children are our justifications and some are but our regrets.

  When night comes and you too are dark, lie down and be dark with a will.

  And when morning comes and you are still dark stand up and say to the day with a will, “I am still dark.”

  It is stupid to play a role with the night and the day.

  They would both laugh at you.

  JESUS, THE SON OF MAN (1928)

  HIS WORDS AND HIS DEEDS AS TOLD AND RECORDED BY THOSE WHO KNEW HIM

  CONTENTS

  JAMES THE SON OF ZEBEDEE

  ANNA THE MOTHER OF MARY

  ASSAPH CALLED THE ORATOR OF TYRE

  MARY MAGDALENE

  PHILEMON A GREEK APOTHECARY

  SIMON WHO WAS CALLED PETER

  CAIAPHAS

  JOANNA THE WIFE OF HEROD’S STEWARD

  RAFCA

  A PERSIAN PHILOSOPHER IN DAMASCUS

  DAVID ONE OF HIS FOLLOWERS

  LUKE

  MATTHEW

  JOHN THE SON OF ZEBEDEE

  A YOUNG PRIEST OF CAPERNAUM

  A RICH LEVI IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF NAZARETH

  A SHEPHERD IN SOUTH LEBANON

  JOHN THE BAPTIST


  JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA

  NATHANIEL

  SABA OF ANTIOCH

  SALOME TO A WOMAN FRIEND

  RACHAEL A WOMAN DISCIPLE

  CLEOPAS OF BETHROUNE

  NAAMAN OF THE GADARENES

  THOMAS

  ELMADAM THE LOGICIAN

  ONE OF THE MARYS

  RUMANOUS A GREEK POET

  LEVI A DISCIPLE

  A WIDOW IN GALILEE

  JUDAS THE COUSIN OF JESUS

  THE MAN FROM THE DESERT

  PETER

  MELACHI OF BABYLON AN ASTRONOMER

  A PHILOSOPHER

  URIAH AN OLD MAN OF NAZARETH

  NICODEMUS THE POET

  JOSEPH OF ARIMETHEA

  GEORGUS OF BEIRUT

  MARY MAGDALENE

  JOTHAM OF NAZARETH TO A ROMAN

  EPHRAIM OF JERICHO

  BARCA A MERCHANT OF TYRE

  PHUMIAH THE HIGH PRIESTESS OF SIDON

  BENJAMIN THE SCRIBE

  ZACCHAEUS

  JONATHAN

  HANNAH OF BETHSAIDA

  MANASSEH

  JEPHTHA OF CAESAREA

  JOHN THE BELOVED DISCIPLE

  MANNUS THE POMPEIIAN TO A GREEK

  PONTIUS PILATUS

  BARTHOLOMEW IN EPHESUS

  MATTHEW

  ANDREW

  A RICH MAN

  JOHN AT PATMOS

  PETER

  A COBBLER IN JERUSALEM

  SUZANNAH OF NAZARETH

  JOSEPH SURNAMED JUSTUS

  PHILIP

  BIRBARAH OF YAMMOUNI

  PILATE’S WIFE TO A ROMAN LADY

  A MAN OUTSIDE OF JERUSALEM

  SARKIS AN OLD GREEK SHEPHERD CALLED THE MADMAN

  ANNAS THE HIGH PRIEST

  A WOMAN ONE OF MARY’S NEIGHBOURS

  AHAZ THE PORTLY

  BARABBAS

  CLAUDIUS A ROMAN SENTINEL

  JAMES THE BROTHER OF THE LORD

  SIMON THE CYRENE

  CYBOREA

  THE WOMAN OF BYBLOS

  MARY MAGDALEN THIRTY YEARS LATER

  A MAN FROM LEBANON

  JAMES THE SON OF ZEBEDEE

  On the Kingdoms of the World

  Upon a day in the spring of the year Jesus stood in the market-place of Jerusalem and He spoke to the multitudes of the kingdom of heaven.

  And He accused the scribes and the Pharisees of setting snares and digging pitfalls in the path of those who long after the kingdom; and He denounced them.

  Now amongst the crowd was a company of men who defended the Pharisees and the scribes, and they sought to lay hands upon Jesus and upon us also.