And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life’s
inmost secret. But if you in your pain call birth an affliction
and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow,
then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall
wash away that which is written.
You have been told also that life is darkness, and in your
weariness you echo what was said by the weary. And I say that
life is indeed darkness save when there is urge, And all urge
is blind save when there is knowledge. And all knowledge is
vain save when there is work, And all work is empty save when
there is love;
And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself,
and to one another, and to God. And what is it to work with
love.
It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart,
even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth. It is to build a
house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in
that house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with
joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit. It is to charge
all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,
And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and
watching.
Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, ‘He who
works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the
stone, is nobler than he who ploughs the soil. And he who
seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is
more than he who makes the sandals for our feet.’
But I say, not in sleep, but in the over wakefulness of noontide,
that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks
than to the least of all the blades of grass; And he alone is
great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter
by his own loving.
Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love
but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your
work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those
who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter
bread that feeds but half man’s hunger. And if you grudge
the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in
the wine. And if you sing though as angels, and love not the
singing, you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the
voices of the night.
....read complete book available as free download at-
http://www.4shared.com/office/uDeN16kP/The_prophet_-_Khalil_Gibran.htm
