And now the collector was looking at his statue, and he was thinking, and he said to himself, “What beauty! What life! The dream of what a soul!--and fresh with the sweet sleep of a thousand years. How can any one give all this for money, dead and dreamless?”
A fish said to another fish, “Above this sea of ours there is another sea, with creatures swimming in it--and they live there even as we live here.”
The fish replied, “Pure fancy! Pure fancy! When you know that everything that leaves our sea by even an inch, and stays out of it, dies. What proof have you of other lives in other seas?”
On a moonless night a man entered into his neighbour’s garden and stole the largest melon he could find and brought it home.
The man’s conscience woke and smote him with remorse; and he repented having stolen the melon.
[Illustration: drawing signed K. Gibran, 1920]
Wait, wait yet awhile, my eager friend. I shall yield but too soon this wasted thing, Whose agony overwrought and useless Exhausts your patience. I would not have your honest hunger Wait upon these moments: But this chain, though made of a breath, Is hard to break. And the will to die, Stronger than all things strong, Is stayed by a will to live Feebler than all things feeble. Forgive me comrade; I tarry too long. It is memory that holds my spirit; A procession of distant days, A vision of youth spent in a dream, A face that bids my eyelids not to sleep, A voice that lingers in my ears, A hand that touches my hand. Forgive me that you have waited too long. It is over now, and all is faded:-- The face, the voice, the hand and the mist that brought them hither. The knot is untied. The cord is cleaved. And that which is neither food nor drink is withdrawn. Approach, my hungry comrade; The board is made ready, And the fare, frugal and spare, Is given with love. Come, and dig your beak here, into the left side, And tear out of its cage this smaller bird, Whose wings can beat no more: I would have it soar with you into the sky. Come now, my friend, I am your host tonight, And you my welcome guest.
Beyond my solitude is another solitude, and to him who dwells therein my aloneness is a crowded market-place and my silence a confusion of sounds.