The Prophet - Kahlil Gibran Page 0,5

to work as an artist. In 1920 Gibran became the founder of a literary society called Arrabitah or The Pen-Bond. His careers as both painter and writer were flourishing but his health was failing and he began to drink heavily to counteract cardiac pains. He was frequently invited to address liberal church congregations. An exhibition of his pen and wash drawings opened in Boston in 1922, and in 1923 his masterpiece, The Prophet, was published. It was an instant success and sales have never flagged. He published several more works in both English and Arabic, the most notable being Jesus Son of Man (1928), before dying of liver failure and incipient tuberculosis on 10 April 1931. Gibran never lost his passion for his native Lebanon, where he is buried and where he has acquired legendary status.

Suggestions for Further Reading

Suheil Bushrui, Kahlil Gibran of Lebanon, Gerrard’s Cross 1987

Mikhail Naimy, Kahlil Gibran: His Life and His Work, Khayats, Beirut 1964

Barbara Young, This Man from Lebanon: A Study of Kahlil Gibran, Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1945

Jean and Kahlil Gibran, Kahlil Gibran: His Life and His World, Boston 1974

Virginia Hilu (ed.), Beloved Prophet: The Love Letters of Kahlil Gibran and Mary Haskell and Her Private Journal, AAK, New York 1972

Suheil Bushrui and Salma H. Kusbari (trans.) and (ed.), Blue Flame: The Love Letters of Kahlil Gibran to May Ziadah, Longman, Burnt Mill 1983

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 crystallise 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