Collected Poetical Works of Kahlil Gibran

by Kahlil Gibran

  When I heard these words my heart swelled within me and I was grateful.

  And I carried His cross.

  It was heavy, for it was made of poplar soaked through with the rains of winter.

  And Jesus looked at me. And the sweat of His forehead was running down upon His beard.

  Again He looked at me and He said, “Do you too drink this cup? You shall indeed sip its rim with me to the end of time.”

  So saying He placed His hand upon my free shoulder. And we walked together towards the Hill of the Skull.

  But now I felt not the weight of the cross. I felt only His hand. And it was like the wing of a bird upon my shoulder.

  Then we reached the hill top, and there they were to crucify Him.

  And then I felt the weight of the tree.

  He uttered no word when they drove the nails into His hands and feet, nor made He any sound.

  And His limbs did not quiver under the hammer.

  It seemed as if His hands and feet had died and would only live again when bathed in blood. Yet it seemed also as if He sought the nails as the prince would seek the sceptre; and that He craved to be raised to the heights.

  And my heart did not think to pity Him, for I was too filled to wonder.

  Now, the man whose cross I carried has become my cross.

  Should they say to me again, “Carry the cross of this man,” I would carry it till my road ended at the grave.

  But I would beg Him to place His hand upon my shoulder.

  This happened many years ago; and still whenever I follow the furrow in the field, and in that drowsy moment before sleep, I think always of that Beloved Man.

  And I feel His winged hand, here, on my left shoulder.

  CYBOREA

  The Mother of Judas

  My son was a good man and upright. He was tender and kind to me, and he loved his kin and his countrymen. And he hated our enemies, the cursed Romans, who wear purple cloth though they spin no thread nor sit at any loom; and who reap and gather where they have not ploughed nor sowed the seed.

  My son was but seventeen when he was caught shooting arrows at the Roman legion passing through our vineyard.

  Even at that age he would speak to the other youths of the glory of Israel, and he would utter many strange things that I did not understand.

  He was my son, my only son.

  He drank life from these breasts now dry, and he took his first steps in this garden, grasping these fingers that are now like trembling reeds.

  With these selfsame hands, young and fresh then like the grapes of Lebanon, I put away his first sandals in a linen kerchief that my mother had given me. I still keep them there in that chest, beside the window.

  He was my first-born, and when he took his first step, I too took my first step. For women travel not save when led by their children.

  And now they tell me he is dead by his own hand; that he flung himself from the High Rock in remorse because he had betrayed his friend Jesus of Nazareth.

  I know my son is dead. But I know he betrayed no one; for he loved his kin and hated none but the Romans.

  My son sought the glory of Israel, and naught but that glory was upon his lips and in his deeds.

  When he met Jesus on the highway he left me to follow Him. And in my heart I knew that he was wrong to follow any man.

  When he bade me farewell I told him that he was wrong, but he listened not.

  Our children do not heed us; like the high tide of today, they take no counsel with the high tide of yesterday.

  I beg you question me no further about my son.

  I loved him and I shall love him forevermore.

  If love were in the flesh I would burn it out with hot irons and be at peace. But it is in the soul, unreachable.

  And now I would speak no more. Go question another woman more honoured than the mother of Judas.

  Go to the mother of Jesus. The sword is in her heart also; she will tell you of me, and you will understand.

  THE WOMAN OF BYBLOS

  A Lamentation

  Weep with me, ye daughters of Ashtarte, and all ye lovers of Tamouz, Bid your heart melt and rise and run blood-tears, For He who was made of gold and ivory is no more.

  In the dark forest the boar overcame Him, And the tusks of the boar pierced His flesh. Now He lies stained with the leaves of yesteryear, And no longer shall His footsteps wake the seeds that sleep in the bosom of the spring. His voice will not come with the dawn to my window, And I shall be forever alone.

  Weep with me, ye daughters of Ashtarte, and all ye lovers of Tamouz, For my Beloved has escaped me; He who spoke as the rivers speak; He whose voice and time were twins; He whose mouth was a red pain made sweet; He on whose lips gall would turn to honey.

  Weep with me, daughters of Ashtarte, and ye lovers of Tamouz. Weep with me around His bier as the stars weep, And as the moon-petals fall upon His wounded body. Wet with your tears the silken covers of my bed, Where my Beloved once lay in my dream, And was gone away in my awakening.

  I charge ye, daughters of Ashtarte, and all ye lovers of Tamouz, Bare your breasts and weep and comfort me, For Jesus of Nazareth is dead.

  MARY MAGDALEN THIRTY YEARS LATER

  On the Resurrection of the Spirit

  Once again I say that with death Jesus conquered death, and rose from the grave a spirit and a power. And He walked in our solitude and visited the gardens of our passion.

  He lies not there in that cleft rock behind the stone.

  We who love Him beheld Him with these our eyes which He made to see; and we touched Him with these our hands which He taught to reach forth.

  I know you who believe not in Him. I was one of you, and you are many; but your number shall be diminished.

  Must your break your harp and your lyre to find the music therein?

  Or must you fell a tree ere you can believe it bears fruit?

  You hate Jesus because someone from the North Country said He was the Son of God. But you hate one another because each of you deems himself too great to be the brother of the next man.

  You hate Him because someone said He was born of a virgin, and not of man’s seed.

  But you know not the mothers who go to the tomb in virginity, nor the men who go down to the grave choked with their own thirst.

  You know not that the earth was given in marriage to the sun, and that earth it is who sends us forth to the mountain and the desert.

  There is a gulf that yawns between those who love Him and those who hate Him, between those who believe and those who do not believe.

  But when the years have bridged that gulf you shall know that He who lived in us is deathless, that He was the Son of God even as we are the children of God; that He was born of a virgin even as we are born of the husbandless earth.

  It is passing strange that the earth gives not to the unbelievers the roots that would suck at her breast, nor the wings wherewith to fly high and drink, and be filled with the dews of her space.

  But I know what I know, and it is enough.

  A MAN FROM LEBANON

  Nineteen Centuries Afterward

  Master, master singer,

  Master of words unspoken,

  Seven times was I born, and seven times have I died

  Since your last hasty visit and our brief welcome.

  And behold I live again,

  Remembering a day and a night among the hills,

  When your tide lifted us up.

  Thereafter many lands and many seas did I cross,

  And wherever I was led by saddle or sail

  Your name was prayer or argument.

  Men would bless you or curse you;

  The curse, a protest against failure,

  The blessing, a hymn of the hunter

  Who comes back from the hills

  With provision for his mate.

  Your friends are yet with us for comfort and support,

  And your enemies also, for strength and assurance.

 
Your mother is with us;

  I have beheld the sheen of her face in the countenance of all mothers;

  Her hand rocks cradles with gentleness,

  Her hand folds shrouds with tenderness.

  And Mary Magdalene is yet in our midst,

  She who drank the vinegar of life, and then its wine.

  And Judas, the man of pain and small ambitions,

  He too walks the earth;

  Even now he preys upon himself when his hunger find naught else,

  And seeks his larger self in self-destruction.

  And John, he whose youth loved beauty, is here,

  And he sings though unheeded.

  And Simon Peter the impetuous, who denied you that he might live

  longer for you,

  He too sits by our fire.

  He may deny you again ere the dawn of another day,

  Yet he would be crucified for your purpose, and deem himself unworthy

  of the honour.

  And Caiaphas and Annas still live their day,

  And judge the guilty and the innocent.

  They sleep upon their feathered bed

  Whilst he whom they have judged is whipped with the rods.

  And the woman who was taken in adultery,

  She too walks the streets of our cities,

  And hungers for bread not yet baked,

  And she is alone in an empty house.

  And Pontius Pilatus is here also:

  He stands in awe before you,

  And still questions you,

  But he dares not risk his station or defy an alien race;

  And he is still washing his hands.

  Even now Jerusalem holds the basin and Rome the ewer,

  And betwixt the two thousand thousand hands would be washed to

  whiteness.

  Master, Master Poet,

  Master of words sung and spoken,

  They have builded temples to house your name,

  And upon every height they have raised your cross,

  A sign and a symbol to guide their wayward feet,

  But not unto your joy.

  Your joy is a hill beyond their vision,

  And it does not comfort them.

  They would honour the man unknown to them.

  And what consolation is there in a man like themselves, a man whose

  kindliness is like their own kindliness,

  A god whose love is like their own love,

  And whose mercy is in their own mercy?

  They honour not the man, the living man,

  The first man who opened His eyes and gazed at the sun

  With eyelids unquivering.

  Nay, they do not know Him, and they would not be like Him.

  *

  They would be unknown, walking in the procession of the unknown.

  They would bear sorrow, their sorrow,

  And they would not find comfort in your joy.

  Their aching heart seeks not consolation in your words and the song

  thereof.

  And their pain, silent and unshapen,

  Makes them creatures lonely and unvisited.

  Though hemmed about my kin and kind,

  They live in fear, uncomraded;

  Yet they would not be alone.

  They would bend eastward when the west wind blows.

  They call you king,

  And they would be in your court.

  They pronounce you the Messiah,

  And they would themselves be anointed with the holy oil.

  Yea, they would live upon your life.

  Master, Master Singer,

  Your tears were like the showers of May,

  And your laughter like the waves of the white sea.

  When you spoke your words were the far-off whisper of their lips when

  those lips should be kindled with fire;

  You laughed for the marrow in their bones that was not yet ready for

  laughter;

  And you wept for their eyes that yet were dry.

  Your voice fathered their thoughts and their understanding.

  Your voice mothered their words and their breath.

  Seven times was I born and seven times have I died,

  And now I live again, and I behold you,

  The fighter among fighters,

  The poet of poets

  King above all kings,

  A man half-naked with your road-fellows.

  Every day the bishop bends down his head

  When he pronounces your name.

  And every day the beggars say:

  “For Jesus’ sake

  Give us a penny to buy bread.”

  We call upon each other,

  But in truth we call upon you,

  Like the flood tide in the spring of our want and desire,

  And when our autumn comes, like the ebb tide.

  High or low, your name is upon our lips,

  The Master of infinite compassion.

  Master, Master of our lonely hours,

  Here and there, betwixt the cradle and the coffin, I meet your silent

  brothers,

  The free men, unshackled,

  Sons of your mother earth and space.

  They are like the birds of the sky,

  And like the lilies of the field.

  They live your life and think your thoughts,

  And they echo your song.

  But they are empty-handed,

  And they are not crucified with the great crucifixion,

  And therein is their pain.

  The world crucifies them every day,

  But only in little ways.

  The sky is not shaken,

  And the earth travails not with her dead.

  They are crucified and there is none to witness their agony.

  They turn their face to right and left

  And find not one to promise them a station in his kingdom.

  Yet they would be crucified again and yet again,

  That your God may be their God,

  And your Father their Father.

  Master, Master Lover,

  The Princess awaits your coming in her fragrant chamber,

  And the married unmarried woman in her cage;

  The harlot who seeks bread in the streets of her shame,

  And the nun in her cloister who has no husband;

  The childless woman too at her window,

  Where frost designs the forest on the pane,

  She finds you in that symmetry,

  And she would mother you, and be comforted.

  Master, Master Poet,

  Master of our silent desires,

  The heart of the world quivers with the throbbing of your heart,

  But it burns not with your song.

  The world sits listening to your voice in tranquil delight,

  But it rises not from its seat

  To scale the ridges of your hills.

  Man would dream your dream but he would not wake to your dawn

  Which is his greater dream.

  He would see with your vision,

  But he would not drag his heavy feet to your throne.

  Yet many have been enthroned inn your name

  And mitred with your power,

  And have turned your golden visit

  Into crowns for their head and sceptres for their hand.

  Master, Master of Light,

  Whose eye dwells in the seeking fingers of the blind,

  You are still despised and mocked,

  A man too weak and infirm to be God,

  A God too much man to call forth adoration.

  Their mass and their hymn,

  Their sacrament and their rosary, are for their imprisoned self.

  You are their yet distant self, their far-off cry, and their passion.

  But Master, Sky-heart, Knight of our fairer dream,

  You do still tread this day;

  Nor bows nor spears shall stay your steps.

  You
walk through all our arrows.

  You smile down upon us,

  And though you are the youngest of us all

  You father us all.

  Poet, Singer, Great Heart,

  May our God bless your name,

  And the womb that held you, and the breasts that gave you milk.

  And may God forgive us all.

  THE END

  THE EARTH GODS (1931)

  THE EARTH GODS

  When the night of the twelfth aeon fell,

  And silence, the high tide of night, swallowed the hills,

  The three earth-born gods, the Master Titans of life,

  Appeared upon the mountains.

  Rivers ran about their feet;

  The mist floated across their breasts,

  And their heads rose in majesty above the world.

  Then they spoke, and like distant thunder

  Their voices rolled over the plains.

  FIRST GOD

  The wind blows eastward;

  I would turn my face to the south,

  For the wind crowds my nostrils with the odors of dead things.

  SECOND GOD

  It is the scent of burnt flesh, sweet and bountiful.

  I would breathe it.

  FIRST GOD

  It is the odor of mortality parching upon its own faint flame.

  Heavily does it hang upon the air,

  And like foul breath of the pit

  It offends my senses.

  I would turn my face to the scentless north.

  SECOND GOD

  It is the inflamed fragrance of brooding life

  This I would breathe now and forever.

  Gods live upon sacrifice,

  Their thirst quenched by blood,

  Their hearts appeased with young souls,

  Their sinews strengthened by the deathless sighs

  Of those who dwell with death;

  Their thrones are built upon the ashes of generations.

  FIRST GOD

  Weary is my spirit of all there is.

  I would not move a hand to create a world

  Nor to erase one.

  I would not live could I but die,

  For the weight of aeons is upon me,

  And the ceaseless moan of the seas exhausts my sleep.

  Could I but lose the primal aim

  And vanish like a wasted sun;

  Could I but strip my divinity of its purpose

  And breathe my immortality into space,

  And be no more;