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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?
Fain would I take with me all that is here. But how shall I?
And alone and without his nest shall the eagle fly across the sun.
A seeker of silences am I, and what treasure have I found in silences that I may dispense with confidence?
And ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.
People of Orphalese, of what can I speak save of that which is even now moving within your souls?
When love beckons to you, follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And When his wings enfold you yield to him, Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And When he speaks to you believe in him, Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden. For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth. Like sheaves of
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Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
Surely he who is worthy to receive his days and his nights is worthy of all else from you. And he who has deserved to drink from the ocean of life deserves to fill his cup from your little stream.
For in truth it is life that gives unto life-while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness.
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.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.
Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul, and then walks grinning in the funeral.
And that the corner-stone of the temple is not higher than the lowest stone in its foundation.
What of the old serpent who cannot shed his skin, and calls all others naked and shameless?
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?
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 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.
Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing;
And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may livethrough its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.
Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity: For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen, And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears.
Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights. But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart's knowledge.
If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.
You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts; And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime.
You are good when you strive to give of yourself. Yet you are not evil when you seek gain for yourself. For when you strive for gain you are but a root that clings to the earth and sucks at her breast. Surely the fruit cannot say to the root, "Be like me, ripe and full and ever giving of your abundance." For to the fruit giving is a need, as receiving is a need to the root.
For the truly good ask not the naked, "Where is your garment?" nor the houseless, "What has befallen your house?"
"We cannot ask thee for aught, for thou knowest our needs before they are born in us: "Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all."
And I fain would have you sing it with fullness of heart; yet I would not have you lose your hearts in the singing.
Have you not heard of the man who was digging in the earth for roots and found a treasure?
Go to your fields and your gardens, and you shall learn that it is the pleasure of the bee to gather honey of the flower, But it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee. For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life, And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love, And to both, bee and flower, the giving and the receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy. People of Orphalese, be in your pleasures like the flowers and the bees.
Yet in truth you spoke not of her but of needs unsatisfied, And beauty is not a need but an ecstasy.
It is not the image you would see nor the song you would hear, But rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears.
You are not enclosed within your bodies, nor confined to houses or fields. That which is you dwells above the mountain and roves with the wind.
"A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me."
