SAND AND FOAM
By Kahlil Gibran
We shall never understand one another
until we reduce the language to seven
words.
Every dragon gives birth to a St. George
who slays it.
Tolerance is love sick with the sickness
of haughtiness.
When my cup is empty I resign myself
to its emptiness but when it is half full
I resent its half-fullness.
Long Did I lie in the dust of Egypt,
silent and unaware of the seasons.
Then the sun gave me birth, and I rose
and walked upon the banks of the Nile,
Singing with the days and dreaming
with the nights.
And now the sun treads upon me with a
thousand feet that I may lie again in the
dust of Egypt.
But behold a marvel and a riddle!
The very sun that gathered me cannot
scatter me.
Still erect am I, and sure of foot do I
walk upon the banks of the Nile.
Strange that we all defend our wrongs
with more vigor than we do our rights.
It was but yesterday I thought myself a
fragment quivering without rhythm in the
sphere of life.
Now I know that I am the sphere, and
all life in rhythmic fragments moves
within me.
Love is the veil between lover and lover.
We are all prisoners but some of us are
in cells with windows and some without
When you reach the end of what you should
know, you will be at the beginning of what
you should sense.
How narrow is the vision that exalts
the busyness of the ant above the singing
of the grasshopper.
My loneliness was born when men praised
my talkative faults and blamed my silent
virtues.
The most pitiful among men is he who
turns his dreams into silver and gold.
Though the wave of words is forever
upon us, yet our depth is forever silent.
One may not reach the dawn save by
the path of the night.
Even the masks of life are masks of
deeper mystery.
Let us not be particular and sectional.
The poet's mind and the scorpion's tail
rise in glory from the same earth.
All our words are but crumbs that fall
down from the feast of the mind.
Mayhap a funeral among men is a wedding
feast among the angels.
Worms will turn but is it not strange
that even elephants will yield?
A traveler am I and a navigator, and
every day I discover a new region within
my soul.
They dip their pens in our hearts and
think they are inspired.
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 woman protested saying, "Of course
it was a righteous war. My son fell in
it."
Remembrance is a form of meeting.
Genius is but a robin's song at the
beginning of a slow spring.
He who would understand a woman, or
dissect genius, or solve the mystery of
silence is the very man who would wake
from a beautiful dream to sit at a
breakfast table.
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.
You are truly a forgiver when you
forgive murderers who never spill
blood, thieves who never steal,
and liars who utter no falsehood.
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 truth is to be known always, to be
uttered sometimes.
When a man's hand touches the hand of
a woman they both touch the heart of
eternity.
We often sing lullabyes to our children
that we ourselves may sleep.
Once I saw the face of a woman, and I
beheld all her children not yet born.
And a woman looked upon my face and
she knew all my forefathers, dead before
she was born.
Only once have I been made mute. It
was when a man asked me, "Who are you?"
If your heart is a volcano how shall you
expect flowers to bloom in you hands
When you see a man led to prison say
in your heart, "Mayhap he is escaping
from a narrower prison."
And when you see a man drunken say
in your heart, "Mayhap he sought escape
from something still more unbeautiful."
By Kahlil Gibran
We shall never understand one another
until we reduce the language to seven
words.
Every dragon gives birth to a St. George
who slays it.
Tolerance is love sick with the sickness
of haughtiness.
When my cup is empty I resign myself
to its emptiness but when it is half full
I resent its half-fullness.
Long Did I lie in the dust of Egypt,
silent and unaware of the seasons.
Then the sun gave me birth, and I rose
and walked upon the banks of the Nile,
Singing with the days and dreaming
with the nights.
And now the sun treads upon me with a
thousand feet that I may lie again in the
dust of Egypt.
But behold a marvel and a riddle!
The very sun that gathered me cannot
scatter me.
Still erect am I, and sure of foot do I
walk upon the banks of the Nile.
Strange that we all defend our wrongs
with more vigor than we do our rights.
It was but yesterday I thought myself a
fragment quivering without rhythm in the
sphere of life.
Now I know that I am the sphere, and
all life in rhythmic fragments moves
within me.
Love is the veil between lover and lover.
We are all prisoners but some of us are
in cells with windows and some without
When you reach the end of what you should
know, you will be at the beginning of what
you should sense.
How narrow is the vision that exalts
the busyness of the ant above the singing
of the grasshopper.
My loneliness was born when men praised
my talkative faults and blamed my silent
virtues.
The most pitiful among men is he who
turns his dreams into silver and gold.
Though the wave of words is forever
upon us, yet our depth is forever silent.
One may not reach the dawn save by
the path of the night.
Even the masks of life are masks of
deeper mystery.
Let us not be particular and sectional.
The poet's mind and the scorpion's tail
rise in glory from the same earth.
All our words are but crumbs that fall
down from the feast of the mind.
Mayhap a funeral among men is a wedding
feast among the angels.
Worms will turn but is it not strange
that even elephants will yield?
A traveler am I and a navigator, and
every day I discover a new region within
my soul.
They dip their pens in our hearts and
think they are inspired.
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 woman protested saying, "Of course
it was a righteous war. My son fell in
it."
Remembrance is a form of meeting.
Genius is but a robin's song at the
beginning of a slow spring.
He who would understand a woman, or
dissect genius, or solve the mystery of
silence is the very man who would wake
from a beautiful dream to sit at a
breakfast table.
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.
You are truly a forgiver when you
forgive murderers who never spill
blood, thieves who never steal,
and liars who utter no falsehood.
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 truth is to be known always, to be
uttered sometimes.
When a man's hand touches the hand of
a woman they both touch the heart of
eternity.
We often sing lullabyes to our children
that we ourselves may sleep.
Once I saw the face of a woman, and I
beheld all her children not yet born.
And a woman looked upon my face and
she knew all my forefathers, dead before
she was born.
Only once have I been made mute. It
was when a man asked me, "Who are you?"
If your heart is a volcano how shall you
expect flowers to bloom in you hands
When you see a man led to prison say
in your heart, "Mayhap he is escaping
from a narrower prison."
And when you see a man drunken say
in your heart, "Mayhap he sought escape
from something still more unbeautiful."