Then I shall stand among you, a seafarer among seafarers. Only another breath will I breathe in this still air, only another loving look cast backward, Ready am I to go, and my eagerness with sails full set awaits the wind. And now you come in my awakening, which is my deeper dream. Sons of my ancient mother, you riders of the tides, 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.Īnd his soul cried out to them, and he said: Alone must it seek the ether.Īnd alone and without his nest shall the eagle fly across the sun.

But how shall I?Ī voice cannot carry the tongue and the lips that give it wings. The sea that calls all things unto her calls me, and I must embark.įor to stay, though the hours burn in the night, is to freeze and crystallize and be bound in a mould.įain would I take with me all that is here. Nor is it a thought I leave behind me, but a heart made sweet with hunger and with thirst.

It is not a garment I cast off this day, but a skin that I tear with my own hands. 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.

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?

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran