Vision

by Khalil Gibran

The Creation I 

The God separated a spirit from Himself and fashioned it into Beauty. He showered upon her all the blessings of gracefulness and kindness. He gave her the cup of happiness and said, "Drink not from this cup unless you forget the past and the future, for happiness is naught but the moment." And He also gave her a cup of sorrow and said, "Drink from this cup and you will understand the meaning of the fleeting instants of the joy of life, for sorrow ever abounds." 

And the God bestowed upon her a love that would desert he forever upon her first sigh of earthly satisfaction, and a sweetness that would vanish with her first awareness of flattery. 

And He gave her wisdom from heaven to lead to the all-righteous path, and placed in the depth of her heart and eye that sees the unseen, and created in he an affection and goodness toward all things. He dressed her with raiment of hopes spun by the angels of heaven from the sinews of the rainbow. And He cloaked her in the shadow of confusion, which is the dawn of life and light. 

Then the God took consuming fire from the furnace of anger, and searing wind from the desert of ignorance, and sharp- cutting sands from the shore of selfishness, and coarse earth from under the feet of ages, and combined them all and fashioned Man. He gave to Man a blind power that rages and drives him into a madness which extinguishes only before gratification of desire, and placed life in him which is the specter of death. 

And the god laughed and cried. He felt an overwhelming love and pity for Man, and sheltered him beneath His guidance. 

Vision X 

There in the middle of the field, by the side of a crystalline stream, I saw a bird-cage whose rods and hinges were fashioned by an expert's hands. In one corner lay a dead bird, and in another were two basins -- one empty of water and the other of seeds. I stood there reverently, as if the lifeless bird and the murmur of the water were worthy of deep silence and respect -- something worth of examination and meditation by the heard and conscience. 

As I engrossed myself in view and thought, I found that the poor creature had died of thirst beside a stream of water, and of hunger in the midst of a rich field, cradle of life; like a rich man locked inside his iron safe, perishing from hunger amid heaps of gold. 

Before my eyes I saw the cage turned suddenly into a human skeleton, and the dead bird into a man's heart which was bleeding from a deep wound that looked like the lips of a sorrowing woman. A voice came from that wound saying, "I am the human heart, prisoner of substance and victim of earthly laws. 

"In God's field of Beauty, at the edge of the stream of life, I was imprisoned in the cage of laws made by man. 

"In the center of beautiful Creation I died neglected because I was kept from enjoying the freedom of God's bounty. 

"Everything of beauty that awakens my love and desire is a disgrace, according to man's conceptions; everything of goodness that I crave is but naught, according to his judgment. 

"I am the lost human heart, imprisoned in the foul dungeon of man's dictates, tied with chains of earthly authority, dead and forgotten by laughing humanity whose tongue is tied and whose eyes are empty of visible tears." 

All these words I heard, and I saw them emerging with a stream of ever thinning blood from that wounded heart. 

More was said, but my misted eyes and crying should prevented further sight or hearing. 

Pleasure Xxiv 

Then a hermit, who visited the city once a year, came forth and said, "Speak to us of Pleasure." 

And he answered, saying: 

Pleasure is a freedom song, 

But it is not freedom. 

It is the blossoming of your desires, 

But it is not their fruit. 

It is a depth calling unto a height, 

But it is not the deep nor the high. 

It is the caged taking wing, 

But it is not space encompassed. 

Ay, in very truth, pleasure is a freedom-song. 

And I fain would have you sing it with fullness of heart; yet I would not have you lose your hearts in the singing. 

Some of your youth seek pleasure as if it were all, and they are judged and rebuked. 

I would not judge nor rebuke them. I would have them seek. 

For they shall find pleasure, but not her alone: 

Seven are her sisters, and the least of them is more beautiful than pleasure. 

Have you not heard of the man who was digging in the earth for roots and found a treasure? 

And some of your elders remember pleasures with regret like wrongs committed in drunkenness. 

But regret is the beclouding of the mind and not its chastisement. 

They should remember their pleasures with gratitude, as they would the harvest of a summer. 

Yet if it comforts them to regret, let them be comforted. 

And there are among you those who are neither young to seek nor old to remember; 

And in their fear of seeking and remembering they shun all pleasures, lest they neglect the spirit or offend against it. 

But even in their foregoing is their pleasure. 

And thus they too find a treasure though they dig for roots with quivering hands. 

But tell me, who is he that can offend the spirit? 

Shall the nightingale offend the stillness of the night, or the firefly the stars? 

And shall your flame or your smoke burden the wind? 

Think you the spirit is a still pool which you can trouble with a staff? 

Oftentimes in denying yourself pleasure you do but store the desire in the recesses of your being. 

Who knows but that which seems omitted today, waits for tomorrow? 

Even your body knows its heritage and its rightful need and will not be deceived. 

And your body is the harp of your soul, 

And it is yours to bring forth sweet music from it or confused sounds. 

And now you ask in your heart, "How shall we distinguish that which is good in pleasure from that which is not good?" 

Go to your fields and your gardens, and you shall learn that it is the pleasure of the bee to gather honey of the flower, 

But it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee. 

For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life, 

And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love, 

And to both, bee and flower, the giving and the receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy. 

People of Orphalese, be in your pleasures like the flowers and the bees.