The Prophet

By Kahlil Gibran

Kahlil Gibran considered The Prophet his greatest achievement. He said: "I think I've never been without The Prophet since I first conceived it in Mount Lebanon. It seems to have been a part of me....I kept the manuscript four years before I delivered it over to my publisher, because I wanted to be sure, I wanted to be very sure, that every word of it was the very best I had to offer."
The Chicago Post said of The Prophet: "Cadenced and vibrant with feeling, the words of Kahlil Gibran bring to one's ears the majestic rhythm of Ecclesiastes....If there is a man or woman who can read this book without a quiet acceptance of a great man's philosophy and a singing in the heart as of music born within, that man or woman is indeed dead to life and truth."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stargatebook
• Release date: Jan 25, 2019
• ISBN: 9788832502060

Kahlil Gibran

Poet, philosopher, and artist, Kahlil Gibran (1883 - 1931) was born in Lebanon. The millions of Arabic-speaking peoples familiar with his writings in that language consider him the genius of his age and he was a man whose fame and influence spread far beyond the country of his birth. His poetry has been translated into more than twenty languages and his drawings and paintings have been exhibited in the great capitals of the world and compared by Auguste Rodin to the work of William Blake.

Book preview

FAREWELL

THE COMING OF THE SHIP

ALMUSTAFA, the chosen and the beloved, who wasa dawn unto his own day, had waited twelve years in the city ofOrphalese for his ship that was to return and bear him back to theisle of his birth.And in the twelfth year, on the seventh day ofIelool, the month of reaping, he climbed the hill without the citywalls and looked seaward; and he beheld his ship coming with themist.Then the gates of his heart were flung open, and his joy flewfar over the sea. And he closed his eyes and prayed in the silencesof his soul.

But as he descended the hill, a sadness came upon him, and hethought 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.Longwere the days of pain I have spent within its walls, and long werethe nights of aloneness; and who can depart from his pain and hisaloneness without regret?Too many fragments of the spirit have Iscattered in these streets, and too many are the children of mylonging that walk naked among these hills, and I cannot withdrawfrom them without a burden and an ache.It is not a garment I castoff this day, but a skin that I tear with my own hands.Nor is it athought I leave behind me, but a heart made sweet with hunger andwith thirst.

Yet I cannot tarry longer.The sea that calls all things unto hercalls me, and I must embark.For to stay, though the hours burn inthe night, is to freeze and crystallize and be bound in amould.Fain would I take with me all that is here. But how shall I?Avoice cannot carry the tongue and the lips that gave it wings.Alone must it seek the ether.And alone and without his nest shallthe eagle fly across the sun.

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

And his soul cried out to them, and he said:Sons of my ancientmother, you riders of the tides,How often have you sailed in mydreams. And now you come in my awakening, which is my deeperdream.Ready am I to go, and my eagerness with sails full set awaitsthe wind.Only another breath will I breathe in this still air, onlyanother loving look cast backward,And then I shall stand among you,a seafarer among seafarers.And you, vast sea, sleeping mother,Whoalone are peace and freedom to the river and the stream,Onlyanother winding will this stream make, only another murmur in thisglade,And then I shall come to you, a boundless drop to a boundlessocean.

And as he walked he saw from afar men and women leaving theirfields and their vineyards and hastening towards the city gates.Andhe heard their voices calling his name, and shouting from field tofield telling one another of the coming of his ship.

And he said to himself:Shall the day of parting be the day ofgathering?And shall it be said that my eve was in truth my dawn?Andwhat shall I give unto him who has left his slough in midfurrow, orto him who has stopped the wheel of his winepress?Shall my heartbecome