The Prophet
But you, children of space, you restless
in rest, you shall not be trapped nor
tamed.
Your house shall be not an anchor but a
mast.
It shall not be a glistening film that
covers a wound, but an eyelid that
guards the eye.
You shall not fold your wings that you
may pass through doors, nor bend your
heads that they strike not against a
ceiling, nor fear to breathe lest walls
should crack and fall down.
You shall not dwell in tombs made by the
dead for the living.
And though of magnificence and
splendour, your house shall not hold
your secret nor shelter your longing.
For that which is boundless in you
abides in the mansion of the sky, whose
door is the morning mist, and whose
windows are the songs and the silences
of night.
***** *****
And the weaver said, Speak to us of
_Clothes_.
And he answered:
Your clothes conceal much of your
beauty, yet they hide not the
unbeautiful.
And though you seek in garments the
freedom of privacy you may find in them
a harness and a chain.
Would that you could meet the sun and
the wind with more of your skin and less
of your raiment,
For the breath of life is in the
sunlight and the hand of life is in the
wind.
Some of you say, “It is the north wind
who has woven the clothes we wear.”
And I say, Ay, it was the north wind,
But shame was his loom, and the
softening of the sinews was his thread.
And when his work was done he laughed in
the forest.
Forget not that modesty
is for a shield against the eye of the
unclean.
And when the unclean shall be no more,
what were modesty but a fetter and a
fouling of the mind?
And forget not that the earth delights
to feel your bare feet and the winds
long to play with your hair.
***** *****
And a merchant said, Speak to us of
_Buying and Selling_.
And he answered and said:
To you the earth yields her fruit, and
you shall not want if you but know how
to fill your hands.
It is in exchanging the gifts of the
earth that you shall find abundance and
be satisfied.
Yet unless the exchange be in love and
kindly justice, it will but lead some to
greed and others to hunger.
When in the market place you toilers of
the sea and fields and vineyards meet
the weavers and the potters and the
gatherers of spices,--
Invoke then the master spirit of the
earth, to come into your midst and
sanctify the scales and the reckoning
that weighs value against value.
And suffer not the barren-handed to take
part in your transactions, who would
sell their words for your labour.
To such men you should say,
“Come with us to the field, or go with
our brothers to the sea and cast your
net;
For the land and the sea shall be
bountiful to you even as to us.”
*****
And if there come the singers and the
dancers and the flute players,--buy of
their gifts also.
For they too are gatherers of fruit and
frankincense, and that which they bring,
though fashioned of dreams, is raiment
and food for your soul.
And before you leave the market place,
see that no one has gone his way with
empty hands.
For the master spirit of the earth shall
not sleep peacefully upon the wind
till the needs of the least of you are
satisfied.
***** *****
Then one of the judges of the city
stood forth and said, Speak to us of
_Crime and Punishment_.
And he answered, saying:
It is when your spirit goes wandering
upon the wind,
That you, alone and unguarded, commit
a wrong unto others and therefore unto
yourself.
And for that wrong committed must you
knock and wait a while unheeded at the
gate of the blessed.
Like the ocean is your god-self;
It remains for ever undefiled.
And like the ether it lifts but the
winged.
Even like the sun is your god-self;
It knows not the ways of the mole nor
seeks it the holes of the serpent.
But your god-self dwells not alone
in your being.
Much in you is still man, and much in
you is not yet man,
But a shapeless pigmy that walks asleep
in the mist searching for its own
awakening.
And of the man in you would I now speak.
For it is he and not your god-self nor
the pigmy in the mist, that knows crime
and the punishment of crime.
*****
Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one
who commits a wrong as though he were
not one of you, but a stranger unto you
and an intruder upon your world.
But I say that even as the holy and the
righteous cannot rise beyond the highest
which is in each one of you,
So the wicked and the weak cannot fall
lower than the lowest which is in you
also.
And as a single leaf turns not yellow
but with the silent knowledge of the
whole tree,
So the wrong-doer cannot
do wrong without the hidden will of you
all.
Like a procession you walk together
towards your god-self.
You are the way and the wayfarers.
And when one of you falls down he falls
for those behind him, a caution against
the stumbling stone.
Ay, and he falls for those ahead of him,
who though faster and surer of foot, yet
removed not the stumbling stone.
And this also, though the word lie heavy
upon your hearts:
The murdered is not unaccountable for
his own murder,
And the robbed is not blameless in being
robbed.
The righteous is not innocent of the
deeds of the wicked,
And the white-handed is not clean in the
doings of the felon.
Yea, the guilty is oftentimes the victim
of the injured,
And still more often the condemned is
the burden bearer for the guiltless
and unblamed.
You cannot separate the just from the
unjust and the good from the wicked;
For they stand together before the face
of the sun even as the black thread and
the white are woven together.
And when the black thread breaks, the
weaver shall look into the whole cloth,
and he shall examine the loom also.
*****
If any of you would bring to judgment
the unfaithful wife,
Let him also weigh the heart of her
husband in scales, and measure his soul
with measurements.
And let him who would lash the offender
look unto the spirit of the offended.
And if any of you would punish in the
name of righteousness and lay the ax
unto the evil tree, let him see to its
roots;
And verily he will find the roots of the
good and the bad, the fruitful and the
fruitless, all entwined together in
the silent heart of the earth.
And you judges who would be just,
What judgment pronounce you upon him
who though honest in the flesh yet is a
thief in spirit?
What penalty lay you upon him who slays
in the flesh yet is himself slain in the
spirit?
And how prosecute you him who in action
is a deceiver and an oppressor,
Yet who also is aggrieved and outraged?
*****
And how shall you punish those whose
remorse is already greater than their
misdeeds?
Is not remorse the justice which is
administered by that very law which you
would fain serve?
Yet you cannot lay remorse upon the
innocent nor lift it from the heart of
the guilty.
Unbidden shall it call in the night,
that men may wake and gaze upon
themselves.
And you who would
understand justice, how shall you unless
you look upon all deeds in the fullness
of light?
Only then shall you know that the erect
and the fallen are but one man standing
in twilight between the night of his
pigmy-self and the day of his god-self,
And that the corner-stone of the temple
is not higher than the lowest stone in
its foundation.
***** *****
Then a lawyer said, But what of our
_Laws_, master?
And he answered:
You delight in laying down laws,
Yet you delight more in breaking them.
Like children playing by the ocean who
build sand-towers with constancy and
then destroy them with laughter.
But while you build your sand-towers the
ocean brings more sand to the shore,
And when you destroy them the ocean
laughs with you.
Verily the ocean laughs always with the
innocent.
But what of those to whom life is not
an ocean, and man-made laws are not
sand-towers,
But to whom life is a rock, and the law
a chisel with which they would carve it
in their own likeness?
What of the cripple who hates dancers?
What of the ox who loves his yoke and
deems the elk and deer of the forest
stray and vagrant things?
What of the old serpent who cannot shed
his skin, and calls all others naked and
shameless?
And of him who comes early to the
wedding-feast, and when over-fed and
tired goes his way saying that all
feasts are violation and all feasters
lawbreakers?
*****
What shall I say of these save that
they too stand in the sunlight, but with
their backs to the sun?
They see only their shadows, and their
shadows are their laws.
And what is the sun to them but a caster
of shadows?
And what is it to acknowledge the
laws but to stoop down and trace their
shadows upon the earth?
But you who walk facing the sun, what
images drawn on the earth can hold
you?
You who travel with the wind, what
weather-vane shall direct your course?
What man’s law shall bind you if you
break your yoke but upon no man’s prison
door?
What laws shall you fear if you dance
but stumble against no man’s iron
chains?
And who is he that shall bring you to
judgment if you tear off your garment
yet leave it in no man’s path?
*****
People of Orphalese, you can muffle the
drum, and you can loosen the strings
of the lyre, but who shall command the
skylark not to sing?
***** *****
And an orator said, Speak to us of
_Freedom_.
And he answered:
At the city gate and by your fireside
I have seen you prostrate yourself and
worship your own freedom,
Even as slaves humble themselves before
a tyrant and praise him though he slays
them.
Ay, in the grove of the temple and in
the shadow of the citadel I have seen
the freest among you wear their freedom
as a yoke and a handcuff.
And my heart bled within me; for you
can only be free when even the desire
of seeking freedom becomes a harness
to you, and when you cease to speak of
freedom as a goal and a fulfilment.
You shall be free indeed when your
days are not without a care nor your
nights without a want and a grief,
But rather when these things girdle your
life and yet you rise above them naked
and unbound.
*****
And how shall you rise beyond your days
and nights unless you break the
chains which you at the dawn of your
understanding have fastened around your
noon hour?
In truth that which you call freedom is
the strongest of these chains, though
its links glitter in the sun and dazzle
your eyes.
And what is it but fragments of your
own self you would discard that you may
become free?
If it is an unjust law you would
abolish, that law was written with your
own hand upon your own forehead.
You cannot erase it by burning your law
books nor by washing the foreheads of
your judges, though you pour the sea
upon them.
And if it is a despot you would
dethrone, see first that his throne
erected within you is destroyed.
For how can a tyrant rule the free and
the proud, but for a tyranny in their
own freedom and a shame in their own
pride?
And if it is a care you would cast off,
that cart has been chosen by you rather
than imposed upon you.
And if it is a fear you would dispel,
the seat of that fear is in your heart
and not in the hand of the feared.
*****
Verily all things move within your being
in constant half embrace, the desired
and the dreaded, the repugnant and the
cherished, the pursued and that which
you would escape.
These things move within you as lights
and shadows in pairs that cling.
And when the shadow fades and is no
more, the light that lingers becomes a
shadow to another light.
And thus your freedom when it loses its
fetters becomes itself the fetter of a
greater freedom.