* * *

by Khalil Gibran

On Friendship 

Your friend is your needs answered.

He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.

And he is your board and your fireside.

For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.

When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the 'nay' in your own mind, nor do you withhold the 'ay.'

And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart;

For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed.

When you part from your friend, you grieve not;

For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.

And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.

For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.

And let your best be for your friend.

If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.

For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?

Seek him always with hours to live.

For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.

And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.

For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed. 

* * *

Then a ploughman said, "Speak to us of Work." 

And he answered, saying: 

You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth. 

For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life's procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite. 

When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music. 

Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison? 

Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune. 

But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born, 

And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life, 

And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life's inmost secret. 

But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written. 

You have been told also life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary. 

And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge, 

And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge, 

And all knowledge is vain save when there is work, 

And all work is empty save when there is love; 

And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God. 

And what is it to work with love? 

It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth. 

It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house. 

It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit. 

It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit, 

And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching. 

Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, "he who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is a nobler than he who ploughs the soil. 

And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet." 

But I say, not in sleep but in the over-wakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass; 

And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving. 

Work is love made visible. 

And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy. 

For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger. 

And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distills a poison in the wine. 

And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man's ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night. 

War  

One night a feat was held in the palace, and there came a man and

prostrated himself before the prince, and all the feasters looked

upon him; and they saw that one of his eyes was out and that

the empty socket bled. And the prince inquired of him, 'What has

befallen you?' And the man replied, 'O prince, I am by profession

a thief, and this night, because there was no moon, I went to rob

the money-changer's shop, and as I climbed in through the window

I made a mistake and entered the weaver's shop, and in the dark I

ran into the weaver's loom and my eye was plucked out. And now,

O prince, I ask for justice upon the weaver.'

Then the prince sent for the weaver and he came, and it was decreed

that one of his eyes should be plucked out.

'O prince,' said the weaver, 'the decree is just. It is right that

one of my eyes be taken. And yet, alas! both are necessary to me

in order that I may see the two sides of the cloth that I weave.

But I have a neighbour, a cobbler, who has also two eyes, and in

his trade both eyes are not necessary.'

Then the prince sent for the cobbler. And he came. And they took

out one of the cobbler's two eyes.

And justice was satisfied.