The Prophet

THE PROPHET

By Kahlil Gibran

New York: Alfred A. Knopf

1923

_The Twelve Illustrations In This Volume
Are Reproduced From Original Drawings By
The Author_




“His power came from some great reservoir
of spiritual life else it could not have
been so universal and so potent, but the
majesty and beauty of the language with
which he clothed it were all his own?”

--Claude Bragdon


THE BOOKS OF KAHLIL GIBRAN

The Madman. 1918 Twenty Drawings. 1919
The Forerunner. 1920 The Prophet. 1923
Sand and Foam. 1926 Jesus the Son of
Man. 1928 The Forth Gods. 1931 The
Wanderer. 1932 The Garden of the Prophet
1933 Prose Poems. 1934 Nymphs of the
Valley. 1948




CONTENTS

          The Coming of the Ship
          On Love
          On Marriage
          On Children
          On Giving
          On Eating and Drinking
          On Work
          On Joy and Sorrow
          On Houses
          On Clothes
          On Buying and Selling
          On Crime and Punishment
          On Laws
          On Freedom
          On Reason and Passion
          On Pain
          On Self-Knowledge
          On Teaching
          On Friendship
          On Talking
          On Time
          On Good and Evil
          On Prayer
          On Pleasure
          On Beauty
          On Religion
          On Death
          The Farewell




THE PROPHET

Almustafa, the chosen and the
beloved, who was a dawn unto his own
day, had waited twelve years in the city
of Orphalese for his ship that was to
return and bear him back to the isle of
his birth.

And in the twelfth year, on the seventh
day of Ielool, the month of reaping, he
climbed the hill without the city walls
and looked seaward; and he beheld his
ship coming with the mist.

Then the gates of his heart were flung
open, and his joy flew far over the sea.
And he closed his eyes and prayed in the
silences of his soul.

*****

But as he descended the hill, a sadness
came upon him, and he thought in his
heart:

How shall I go in peace and without
sorrow? Nay, not without a wound in the
spirit shall I leave this city.

Long
were the days of pain I have spent
within its walls, and long were the
nights of aloneness; and who can depart
from his pain and his aloneness without
regret?

Too many fragments of the spirit have I
scattered in these streets, and too many
are the children of my longing that walk
naked among these hills, and I cannot
withdraw from them without a burden and
an ache.

It is not a garment I cast off this
day, but a skin that I tear with my own
hands.

Nor is it a thought I leave behind me,
but a heart made sweet with hunger and
with thirst.

*****

Yet I cannot tarry longer.

The sea that calls all things unto her
calls me, and I must embark.

For to stay, though the hours burn in
the night, is to freeze and crystallize
and be bound in a mould.

Fain would I take with me all that is
here. But how shall I?

A voice cannot carry the tongue and
the lips that gave it wings. Alone
must it seek the ether.

And alone and without his nest shall the
eagle fly across the sun.

*****

Now when he reached the foot of the
hill, he turned again towards the sea,
and he saw his ship approaching the
harbour, and upon her prow the mariners,
the men of his own land.

And his soul cried out to them, and he
said:

Sons of my ancient mother, you riders of
the tides,

How often have you sailed in my dreams.
And now you come in my awakening, which
is my deeper dream.

Ready am I to go, and my eagerness with
sails full set awaits the wind.

Only another breath will I breathe in
this still air, only another loving look
cast backward,

And then I shall stand among you, a
seafarer among seafarers.

And you,
vast sea, sleepless mother,

Who alone are peace and freedom to the
river and the stream,

Only another winding will this stream
make, only another murmur in this glade,

And then shall I come to you, a
boundless drop to a boundless ocean.

*****

And as he walked he saw from afar men
and women leaving their fields and their
vineyards and hastening towards the city
gates.

And he heard their voices calling his
name, and shouting from field to field
telling one another of the coming of his
ship.

And he said to himself:

Shall the day of parting be the day of
gathering?

And shall it be said that my eve was in
truth my dawn?

And what shall I give unto him who has
left his plough in midfurrow, or to
him who has stopped the wheel of his
winepress?

Shall my heart become a
tree heavy-laden with fruit that I may
gather and give unto them?

And shall my desires flow like a
fountain that I may fill their cups?

Am I a harp that the hand of the mighty
may touch me, or a flute that his breath
may pass through me?

A seeker of silences am I, and what
treasure have I found in silences that I
may dispense with confidence?

If this is my day of harvest, in what
fields have I sowed the seed, and in
what unremembered seasons?

If this indeed be the hour in which I
lift up my lantern, it is not my flame
that shall burn therein.