Fantastic Inspirational Message from Actor, Will Smith

Actor Will  Smith shares his philosophy about life (see video at the end of this post.)

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph (AU Edition) Smith says the keys to his life are reading and running.

Yes, reading and running.

After a chuckle, he goes on to explain.

“There are millions and billions of people who have lived before us, and they had problems, they solved them, then they wrote it down in a book somewhere,” says Smith, nodding his head as he continues his lecture.

“So, there’s no new problem that we have that we have to figure out ourselves.

“There’s no issue we have that somebody has not already written the answer down in a book.

“The concept is bittersweet because you know it’s in a book somewhere, but you actually have to find the right one that will give you proper information.

“The running aspect is how you connect with your weakness.

“When you get on a treadmill, you deprive yourself of oxygen.

“What kind of person you are is going to come out very, very quickly.

“You’re either the person who says they are going to run three miles and stop the treadmill at 2.94 miles (4.73 km) and you call that three miles, or you get off after a mile.

“Or you are the type of person who runs hard through the three-mile finishing line and then realise, ‘I could do five miles’ and you go ahead and do it.

“That little person inside your head starts talking to you and says ‘We should stop. I think we’re really hurting ourselves. I don’t think this is healthy anymore’.”

Smith continues, comparing the voices from that “little person in his head” he hears on the treadmill to the same temptations that could ruin his marriage.

“When you get command over that little person, it allows you to get over that little person when he speaks to you in other aspects of your life,”  Smith explains.

Here is Will Smith at the 2005 Kid’s Choice Awards sharing this great advice with a multitude of kids and adults!

10 Quotes in Honor of Fathers Day

I was touched by this because I never knew my father.  He died when I was very young.  When I married, my father -in-law became a “Dad” to me and I am very thankful for him and that he and my mother-in-law raised the wonderful man who has been my husband for 30 years and who is a wonderful father to our two sons.

From: Dale Stuemke

Writer, Marketer
Launch Your Goals
launchyourgoals.com

10 Quotes in Honor of Fathers Day

My wife was one of those children who grew up without a father in the house. In fact, she never knew him. When we got married almost 42 years ago, my father became her father. That was the closest she ever came to having a father. Although he is now in heaven, we think of him often.
She put together these quotes about fathers and wanted to share them with you in honor of Father’s Day:

• A father carries pictures where his money used to be. Author Unknown
• A man’s children and his garden both reflect the amount of weeding done during the growing season. Anonymous
• Dad, your guiding hand on my shoulder will remain with me forever. Author Unknown
• Good parents give their children Roots and Wings. Roots to know where home is, wings to fly away and exercise what’s been taught them. Jonas Salk
• It is a wise child that knows his own father. Homer
• I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection. Sigmond Freud
• My dear father; my dear friend; the best and wisest man I ever knew, who taught me many lessons and showed me many things as we went together along the country by-ways. Sarah Orne Jewett
• The father who does not teach his son his duties is equally guilty with the son who neglects them. Confucius
• The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother. Henry Ward Beecher
• The love of a father is one of nature’s greatest masterpieces. Anonymous

My Dad

When I was just a tiny kid,
Do you remember when,
The time you kissed my bruises,
Or cleaned by soiled chin?

You scrambled for the balls I hit,
(Short-winded more than not,)
Yet, every time we’d play a game,
You praised the “outs” I caught.

It seems like only yesterday,
You wiped away my tears,
And late at night I called your name,
To chase away my fears.

Though time has changed your handsome grip,
Your hair is snowy white,
You gait’s a little slower now,
Thick glasses help your sight.

Oh, do I thirst for years gone by,
To be that growing lad,
Re-living all of the memories,
Of growing with my dad.
Author Unknown

Twitter Hashtag: ThanksThursday

In short, Twitter’s Follow Friday began as a way to recommend a favorite friend to others but it has evolved into more for some people.  Many (myself included) use it as a way to show gratitude for mentions and retweets during the week.   So now, instead of recommending a few of my favorite people, I’m listing hundreds of friends that were kind enough to RT or mention me.  And at least for me, this has gotten out of control.  (Read the full story of Follow Friday at Mashable.)

I’m not always good about thanking people who like what I post well enough to retweet it or who mention me and I want them to know they are appreciated!  That’s why I am using  Thanks Thursday for that purpose.    So, I will try my best to thank people every Thursday and you’ll see that hashtag #ThanksThursday.    ThanksThursday is already being used sometimes to show gratitude but maybe the concept will really take off and Follow Friday will once again be used to highlight a select few instead of (in my case) hundreds.   But, if I find it annoys people (you know, yet another day of listing people to follow!) than I’ll quit   We’ll see what happens!

Don’t know anything about hashtags?  Here is a brief intro from CIO:

The story behind Hashtags
Twitter (the company) didn’t create hashtags. The Twitter community’s early adopters came up with the idea to put a “#” in front of topics to add context to tweets. The tag would also help filter and sort them out for future readers.  Read the entire article here.

Quote: “Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department.” David Packard, HP

Photos – Bizarre Photoshoped Images

With today’s technology you can no longer believe your eyes.   These are just plain weird and a little creepy!

Pictorial – National Geographic 1

A beautiful selection of incredible photos from National Geographic.

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

Beginning of this Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook
The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

CONTENTS
THE COMING OF THE SHIP
ON LOVE
ON MARRIAGE
ON CHILDREN
ON GIVING
ON EATING AND DRINKING
ON WORK
ON JOY AND SORROW
ON HOUSES
ON CLOTHES
ON BUYING
AND SELLING
ON CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
ON LAWS ON FREEDOM
ON REASON AND PASSION
ON PAIN
ON SELF-KNOWLEDGE
ON TEACHING
ON FRIENDSHIP
ON TALKING
ON TIME
ON GOOD AND EVIL
ON PRAYER
ON PLEASURE
ON BEAUTY
ON RELIGION
ON DEATH THE FAREWELL

*********************

THE COMING OF THE SHIP

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 crystallize 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 come in my awakening, which is my deeper dream. Ready am I to go, and
my eagerness with sails full set awaits the wind. Only another breath will I
breathe in this still air, only another loving look cast backward, And then
I shall stand among you, a seafarer among seafarers. And you, vast sea, sleeping
mother, Who alone are peace and freedom to the river and the stream, Only another
winding will this stream make, only another murmur in this glade, And then I
shall come to you, a boundless drop to a boundless ocean. AND as he walked he
saw from afar men and women leaving their fields and their vineyards and hastening
towards the city gates. And he heard their voices calling his name, and shouting
from field to field telling one another of the coming of his ship. AND he said
to himself:

Shall the day of parting be the day of gathering? And shall it be said that
my eve was in truth my dawn? And what shall I give unto him who has left his
slough in midfurrow, or to him who has stopped the wheel of his winepress? Shall
my heart become a tree heavy-laden with fruit that I may gather and give unto
them? And shall my desires flow like a fountain that I may fill their cups?
Am I a harp that the hand of the mighty may touch me, or a flute that his breath
may pass through me? A seeker of silences am I, and what treasure have I found
in silences that I may dispense with confidence? If this is my day of harvest,
in what fields have I sowed the seed, and in what unremembered seasons? If this
indeed be the hour in which I lift up my lantern, it is not my flame that shall
burn therein. Empty and dark shall I raise my lantern, And the guardian of the
night shall fill it with oil and he shall light it also. THESE things he said
in words. But much in his heart remained unsaid. For he himself could not speak
his deeper secret. AND when he entered into the city all the people came to
meet him, and they were crying out to him as with one voice. And the elders
of the city stood forth and said: Go not yet away from us. A noontide have you
been in our twilight, and your youth has given us dreams to dream. No stranger
are you among us, nor a guest, but our son and our dearly beloved. Suffer not
yet our eyes to hunger for your face.

AND the priests and the priestesses said unto him: Let not the waves of the
sea separate us now, and the years you have spent in our midst become a memory.
You have walked among us a spirit, and your shadow has been a light upon our
faces. Much have we loved you. But speechless was our love, and with veils has
it been veiled. Yet now it cries aloud unto you, and would stand revealed before
you. And ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of
separation. AND others came also and entreated him. But he answered them not.
He only bent his head; and those who stood near saw his tears falling upon his
breast. And he and the people proceeded towards the great square before the
temple. AND there came out of the sanctuary a woman whose name was Almitra.
And she was a seeress. And he looked upon her with exceeding tenderness, for
it was she who had first sought and believed in him when he had been but a day
in their city. And she hailed him, saying: Prophet of God, in quest of the uttermost,
long have you searched the distances for your ship. And now your ship has come,
and you must needs go. Deep is your longing for the land of your memories and
the dwelling-place of your greater desires; and our love would not bind you
nor our needs hold you. Yet this we ask ere you leave us, that you speak to
us and give us of your truth.

And we will give it unto our children, and they unto their children, and it
shall not perish. In your aloneness you have watched with our days, and in your
wakefulness you have listened to the weeping and the laughter of our sleep.
Now therefore disclose us to ourselves, and tell us all that has been shown
you of that which is between birth and death. AND he answered: People of Orphalese,
of what can I speak save of that which is even now moving within your souls?

ON LOVE

THEN said Almitra, Speak to us of Love. And he raised his head and looked upon
the people, and there fell a stillness upon them. And with a great voice he
said: 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 corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked. He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness. He kneads you until you are pliant; And then he
assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God’s sacred
feast. ALL these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets
of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life’s heart. BUT
if in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure, Then it
is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter,
and weep, but not all of your tears. LOVE gives naught but itself and takes
naught but from itself. Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love
is sufficient unto love. WHEN you love you should not say, “God is in my
heart,” but rather, “I am in the heart of God.” And think not
you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs
your course.

LOVE has no other desire but to fulfill itself. But if you love and must needs
have desires, let these be your desires: To melt and be like a running brook
that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And to bleed willingly and
joyfully. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day
of loving; To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy; To return home
at eventide with gratitude; And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved
in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

ON MARRIAGE

THEN Almitra spoke again and said, And what of Marriage, master? And he answered
saying: You were born together, and together you shall be for evermore. You
shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days. Aye, you
shall be together even in the silent memory of God. But let there be spaces
in your togetherness. And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. LOVE
one another, but make not a bond of love:

Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each
other’s cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat
not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each
one of you be alone, 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. For
only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together yet not too
near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and
the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.

ON CHILDREN

AND a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children.
And he said: Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters
of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though
they are with you yet they belong not to you. YOU may give them your love but
not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their
souls, For their souls dwell in the house of to-morrow, which you cannot visit,
not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make
them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are
the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer
sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the Archer’s hand
be for gladness; For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also
the bow that is stable.

ON GIVING

THEN said a rich man, Speak to us of Giving. And he answered: You give but
little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that
you truly give. For what are your possessions but things you keep and guard
for fear you may need them to morrow? And to-morrow, what shall to-morrow bring
to the over-prudent dog burying bones in the trackless sand as he follows the
pilgrims to the holy city? And what is fear of need but need itself? Is not
dread of thirst when your well is full, the thirst

that is unquenchable? THERE are those who give little of the much which they
have–and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts
unwholesome. And there are those who have little and give it all. These are
the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty.
There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward. And there are
those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism. And there are those
who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness
of virtue; They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into
space. Through the hands of such as these God speaks, and from behind their
eyes He smiles upon the earth. IT is well to give when asked, but it is better
to give unasked, through understanding; And to the open-handed the search for
one who shall receive is joy greater than giving. And is there aught you would
withhold? All you have shall some day be given; Therefore give now, that the
season of giving may be yours and not your inheritors’. YOU often say, “I
would give, but only to the deserving.” The trees in your orchard say not
so, nor the flocks in your pasture. They give that they may live, for to withhold
is to perish. 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. And what desert greater shall
there be, than that which lies in the courage and the confidence, nay the charity,
of receiving? And who are you that men should rend their bosom and unveil their
pride, that you may see their worth naked and their pride unabashed? See first
that you yourself deserve to be a giver, and an instrument of giving. For in
truth it is life that gives unto life-while you, who deem yourself a giver,
are but a witness. AND you receivers–and you are all receivers–assume no weight
of gratitude, lest you lay a yoke upon yourself and upon him who gives. Rather
rise together with the giver on his gifts as on wings; For to be overmindful
of your debt is to doubt his generosity who has the free-hearted earth for mother,
and God for father.

ON EATING AND DRINKING

THEN an old man, a keeper of an inn, said, Speak to us of Eating and Drinking.
And he said: Would that you could live on the fragrance of the earth, and like
an air plant be sustained by the light. But since you must kill to eat, and
rob the newly born of its mother’s milk to quench your thirst, let it then be
an act of worship, And let your board stand an altar on which the pure and the
innocent of forest and plain are sacrificed for that which is purer

and still more innocent in man. WHEN you kill a beast say to him in your heart:
“By the same power that slays you, I too am slain; and I too shall be consumed.
For the law that delivered you into my hand shall deliver me into a mightier
hand. Your blood and my blood is naught but the sap that feeds the tree of heaven.”
AND when you crush an apple with your teeth, say to it in your heart: “Your
seeds shall live in my body, And the buds of your to-morrow shall blossom in
my heart, And your fragrance shall be my breath, And together we shall rejoice
through all the seasons.” AND in the autumn, when you gather the grapes
of your vineyards for the winepress, say in your heart: “I too am a vineyard,
and my fruit shall be gathered for the winepress, And like new wine I shall
be kept in eternal vessels.” And in winter, when you draw the wine, let
there be in your heart a song for each cup; And let there be in the song a remembrance
for the autumn days, and for the vineyard, and for the winepress.

ON WORK

THEN a ploughman said, Speak to us of Work. And he answered, saying: You work
that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth. For to be idle
is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life’s procession
that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite. WHEN you
work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to
music. Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together
in unison? ALWAYS you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune.
But I say to you that when you work you fulfill a part of earth’s furthest dream,
assigned to you when that dream was born, And in keeping yourself with labour
you are in truth loving life, 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 know ledge. 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 your self 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 your 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 overwakefulness
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 distills 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.

ON JOY AND SORROW

THEN a woman said, Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow. And he answered: Your joy
is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises
was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be? The deeper that
sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup
that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven? And
is not the lute that soothes your spirit the very wood that was hollowed with
knives? When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it
is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are
sorrowful, look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are
weeping for that which has been your delight. SOME of you say, “Joy is
greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable. Together they come, and when one sits
alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
VERILY you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.

Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced. When the treasure-keeper
lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow
rise or fall.

ON HOUSES

THEN a mason came forth and said, Speak to us of Houses. And he answered and
said: Build of your imaginings a bower in the wilderness ere you build a house
within the city walls. For even as you have home-comings in your twilight, so
has the wanderer in you, the ever distant and alone. Your house is your larger
body. It grows in the sun and sleeps in the stillness of the night; and it is
not dreamless. Does not your house dream? and dreaming, leave the city for grove
or hilltop? WOULD that I could gather your houses into my hand, and like a sower
scatter them in forest and meadow. Would the valleys were your streets, and
the green paths your alleys, that you might seek one another through vineyards,
and come with the fragrance of the earth in your garments. But these things
are not yet to be. In their fear your forefathers gathered you too near together.
And that fear shall endure a little longer. A little longer shall your city
walls separate your hearths

from your fields. AND tell me, people of Orphalese, what have you in these
houses? And what is it you guard with fastened doors? Have you peace, the quiet
urge that reveals your power? Have you remembrances, the glimmering arches that
span the summits of the mind? Have you beauty, that leads the heart from things
fashioned of wood and stone to the holy mountain? Tell me, have you these in
your houses? Or have you only comfort, and the lust for comfort, that stealthy
thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master?
AYE, and it becomes a tamer, and with hook and scourge makes puppets of your
larger desires. Though its hands are silken, its heart is of iron. It lulls
you to sleep only to stand by your bed and jeer at the dignity of the flesh.
It makes mock of your sound senses, and lays them in thistledown like fragile
vessels. Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul, and then
walks grinning in the funeral. 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.

ON CLOTHES

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, Aye, 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.

ON BUYING AND SELLING

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.

ON CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

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. Aye, 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 axe 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.

ON LAWS

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 law-breakers? 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?

ON FREEDOM

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. Aye, 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 fulfillment. 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 care 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.

ON REASON AND PASSION

AND the priestess spoke again and said: Speak to us of Reason and Passion.
And he answered, saying: Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your
reason and your judgment wage war against your passion and your appetite. Would
that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and
the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody. But how shall I, unless
you yourselves be also the peacemakers,

nay, the lovers of all your elements? YOUR reason and your passion are the
rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul. If either your sails or your rudder
be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.
For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is
a flame that burns to its own destruction. 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. I WOULD have you consider your judgment
and your appetite even as you would two loved guests in your house. Surely you
would not honour one guest above the other; for he who is more mindful of one
loses the love and the faith of both. AMONG the hills, when you sit in the cool
shade of the white poplars, sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields
and meadows-then let your heart say in silence, “God rests in reason.”
And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind shakes the forest, and thunder
and lightning proclaim the majesty of the sky,–then let your heart say in awe,
“God moves in passion.” And since you are a breath in God’s sphere,
and a leaf in God’s forest, you too should rest in reason and move in passion.

ON PAIN

AND a woman spoke, saying, Tell us of Pain.

And he said: Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun,
so must you know pain. And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily
miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted
the seasons that pass over your fields. And you would watch with serenity through
the winters of your grief. 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.

SELF-KNOWLEDGE

AND a man said, Speak to us of Self-Knowledge. And he answered, saying: 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.

You would know in words that which you have always known in thought. You would
touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams. AND it is well you should.
The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the
sea; And the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes.
But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure; And seek not the
depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line. For self is a sea boundless
and measureless. SAY not, “I have found the truth,” but rather, “I
have found a truth.” Say not, “I have found the path of the soul.”
Say rather, “I have met the soul walking upon my path.” For the soul
walks upon all paths. The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like
a reed. The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.

ON TEACHING

THEN said a teacher, Speak to us of Teaching. And he said: No man can reveal
to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your
knowledge. The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers,
gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.

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. The astronomer may speak
to you of his understanding of space, but he cannot give you his understanding.
The musician may sing to you of the rhythm which is in all space, but he cannot
give you the ear which arrests the rhythm, nor the voice that echoes it. And
he who is versed in the science of numbers can tell of the regions of weight
and measure, but he cannot conduct you thither. For the vision of one man lends
not its wings to another man. And even as each one of you stands alone in God’s
knowledge, so must each one of you be alone in his knowledge of God and in his
understanding of the earth.

ON FRIENDSHIP

AND a youth said, Speak to us of Friendship. And he answered, saying: Your
friend is your needs answered. He is your field which you sow with love and
reap with thanksgiving. And he is your board and your fireside. For you come
to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace. WHEN your friend speaks
his mind you fear not the “nay” in your own mind, nor do you with
hold the “aye.” And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen
to his heart; For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires,

all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unclaimed. When you
part from your friend, you grieve not; For that which you love most in him may
be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the
plain. And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.
For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love
but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught. AND let your best
be for your friend. If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood
also. For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill? Seek
him always with hours to live. For it is his to fill your need, but not your
emptiness. And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing
of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and
is refreshed.

ON TALKING

AND then a scholar said, Speak of Talking. And he answered, saying: 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.

And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered. For thought is a bird
of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.
THERE are those among you who seek the talkative through fear of being alone.
The silence of aloneness reveals to their eyes their naked selves and they would
escape. And there are those who talk, and without knowledge or forethought reveal
a truth which they themselves do not understand. And there are those who have
the truth within them, but they tell it not in words. In the bosom of such as
these the spirit dwells in rhythmic silence. WHEN you meet your friend on the
roadside or in the market-place, let the spirit in you move your lips and direct
your tongue. Let the voice within your voice speak to the ear of his ear; For
his soul will keep the truth of your heart as the taste of the wine is remembered.
When the colour is forgotten and the vessel is no more.

ON TIME

AND an astronomer said, “Master, what of Time?” And he answered:
You would measure time the measureless and the immeasurable. You would adjust
your conduct and even direct the course of your spirit according to hours and
seasons.

Of time you would make a stream upon whose bank you would sit and watch its
flowing. YET the timeless in you is aware of life’s timelessness, And knows
that yesterday is but to-day’s memory and to-morrow is to-day’s dream. And that
which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that
first moment which scattered the stars into space. Who among you does not feel
that his power to love is boundless? And yet who does not feel that very love,
though boundless, encompassed within the centre of his being, and moving not
from love thought to love thought, nor from love deeds to other love deeds?
And is not time even as love is, undivided and paceless? BUT if in your thought
you must measure time into seasons, let each season encircle all the other seasons,
And let to-day embrace the past with remembrance and the future with longing.

ON GOOD AND EVIL

AND one of the elders of the city said, Speak to us of Good and Evil. And he
answered: Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil. For what is evil
but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst? Verily when good is hungry it
seeks food even in dark caves, and when it thirsts it drinks even of dead waters.

YOU are good when you are one with yourself. Yet when you are not one with
yourself you are not evil. For a divided house is not a den of thieves; it is
only a divided house. And a ship without rudder may wander aimlessly among perilous
isles yet sink not to the bottom. 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. YOU are good when you are fully awake in your speech. Yet
you are not evil when you sleep while your tongue staggers without purpose.
And even stumbling speech may strengthen a weak tongue. YOU are good when you
walk to your goal firmly and with bold steps. Yet you are not evil when you
go thither limping. Even those who limp go not backward. But you who are strong
and swift, see that you do not limp before the lame, deeming it kindness. YOU
are good in countless ways, and you are not evil when you are not good, You
are only loitering and sluggard.

Pity that the stags cannot teach swiftness to the turtles. IN your longing
for your giant self lies your goodness: and that longing is in all of you. But
in some of you that longing is a torrent rushing with might to the sea, carrying
the secrets of the hillsides and the songs of the forest. And in others it is
a flat stream that loses itself in angles and bends and lingers before it reaches
the shore. But let not him who longs much say to him who longs little, “Wherefore
are you slow and halting?” For the truly good ask not the naked, “Where
is your garment?” nor the houseless, “What has befallen your house?”
ON PRAYER

THEN a priestess said, “Speak to us of Prayer.” And he answered,
saying: You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray
also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance. FOR what is
prayer but the expansion of your self into the living ether? And if it is for
your comfort to pour your darkness into space, it is also for your delight to
pour forth the dawning of your heart. And if you cannot but weep when your soul
summons you to prayer, she should spur you again and yet again, though weeping,
until you shall come laughing. When you pray you rise to meet in the air those
who are praying at that very hour, and whom save in prayer you may not meet.
Therefore let your visit to that temple invisible be for naught but ecstasy
and sweet communion.

For if you should enter the temple for no other purpose than asking you shall
not receive: And if you should enter into it to humble yourself you shall not
be lifted: Or even if you should enter into it to beg for the good of others
you shall not be heard. It is enough that you enter the temple invisible. I
CANNOT teach you how to pray in words. God listens not to your words save when
He Himself utters them through your lips. And I cannot teach you the prayer
of the seas and the forests and the mountains. But you who are born of the mountains
and the forests and the seas can find their prayer in your heart, And if you
but listen in the stillness of the night you shall hear them saying in silence:
“Our God, who art our winged self, it is thy will in us that willeth. “It
is thy desire in us that desireth. “It is thy urge in us that would turn
our nights, which are thine, into days, which are thine also. “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.”

ON PLEASURE

THEN a hermit, who visited the city once a year, came forth and said, Speak
to us of Pleasure. And he answered, saying: Pleasure is a freedom-song, But
it is not freedom. It is the blossoming of your desires, But it is not their
fruit. It is a depth calling unto a height, But it is not the deep nor the high.
It is the caged taking wing, But it is not space encompassed. Aye, in very truth,
pleasure is a freedom-song. And I fain would have you sing it with fullness
of heart; yet I would not have you lose your hearts in the singing. SOME of
your youth seek pleasure as if it were all, and they are judged and rebuked.
I would not judge nor rebuke them. I would have them seek. For they shall find
pleasure, but not her alone; Seven are her sisters, and the least of them is
more beautiful than pleasure. Have you not heard of the man who was digging
in the earth for roots and found a treasure? AND some of your elders remember
pleasures with regret like wrongs committed in drunkenness. But regret is the
beclouding of the mind and not its chastisement. They should remember their
pleasures with gratitude,

as they would the harvest of a summer. Yet if it comforts them to regret,
let them be comforted. AND there are among you those who are neither young to
seek nor old to remember; And in their fear of seeking and remembering they
shun all pleasures, lest they neglect the spirit or offend against it. But even
in their foregoing is their pleasure. And thus they too find a treasure though
they dig for roots with quivering hands. But tell me, who is he that can offend
the spirit? Shall the nightingale offend the stillness of the night, or the
firefly the stars? And shall your flame or your smoke burden the wind? Think
you the spirit is a still pool which you can trouble with a staff? OFTENTIMES
in denying yourself pleasure you do but store the desire in the recesses of
your being. Who knows but that which seems omitted to day, waits for to-morrow?
Even your body knows its heritage and its rightful need and will not be deceived.
And your body is the harp of your soul, And it is yours to bring forth sweet
music from it or confused sounds. AND now you ask in your heart, “How shall
we distinguish that which is good in pleasure from that which is not good?”
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.

ON BEAUTY

AND a poet said, Speak to us of Beauty. And he answered: Where shall you seek
beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide?
And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech? THE
aggrieved and the injured say, “Beauty is kind and gentle. “Like a
young mother half-shy of her own glory she walks among us.” And the passionate
say, “Nay, beauty is a thing of might and dread. “Like the tempest
she shakes the earth beneath us and the sky above us.” THE tired and the
weary say, “Beauty is of soft whisperings. “She speaks in our spirit.
“Her voice yields to our silences like a faint light that quivers in fear
of the shadow.” But the restless say, “We have heard her shouting
among the mountains,

“And with her cries came the sound of hoofs, and the beating of wings
and the roaring of lions.” AT night the watchmen of the city say, “Beauty
shall rise with the dawn from the east.” And at noontide the toilers and
the wayfarers say, “We have seen her leaning over the earth from the windows
of the sunset.” IN winter say the snow-bound, “She shall come with
the spring leaping upon the hills.” And in the summer heat the reapers
say, “We have seen her dancing with the autumn leaves, and we saw a drift
of snow in her hair.” All these things have you said of beauty, Yet in
truth you spoke not of her but of needs unsatisfied, And beauty is not a need
but an ecstasy. It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth,
But rather a heart inflamed and a soul enchanted. 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. It is not the sap within
the furrowed bark, nor a wing attached to a claw, But rather a garden for ever
in bloom and a flock of angels for ever in flight. PEOPLE of Orphalese, beauty
is life when life unveils her holy face. But you are life and you are the veil.
Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and you
are the mirror.

ON RELIGION

AND an old priest said, “Speak to us of Religion.” And he said: Have
I spoken this day of aught else? Is not religion all deeds and all reflection,
And that which is neither deed nor reflection, but a wonder and a surprise ever
springing in the soul, even while the hands hew the stone or tend the loom?
Who can separate his faith from his actions, or his belief from his occupations?
Who can spread his hours before him, saying, “This for God and this for
myself; “This for my soul and this other for my body”? All your hours
are wings that beat through space from self to self. He who wears his morality
but as his best garment were better naked. The wind and the sun will tear no
holes in his skin. And he who defines his conduct by ethics imprisons his song-bird
in a cage. The freest song comes not through bars and wires. And he to whom
worshipping is a window, to open but also to shut, has not yet visited the house
of his soul whose windows are from dawn to dawn. YOUR daily life is your temple
and your religion.

Whenever you enter into it take with you your all. Take the slough and the
forge and the mallet and the lute, The things you have fashioned in necessity
or for delight. For in reverie you cannot rise above your achievements nor fall
lower than your failures. And take with you all men: For in adoration you cannot
fly higher than their hopes nor humble yourself lower than their despair. AND
if you would know God, be not therefore a solver of riddles. Rather look about
you and you shall see Him playing with your children. And look into space; you
shall see Him walking in the cloud, outstretching His arms in the lightning
and descending in rain. You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising and
waving His hands in trees.

ON DEATH

THEN Almitra spoke, saying, “We would ask now of Death.” And he said:
You would know the secret of death. But how shall you find it unless you seek
it in the heart of life? The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day
cannot unveil the mystery of light. If you would indeed behold the spirit of
death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.

For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one. IN the
depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond; And
like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring. Trust the
dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity. Your fear of death is but
the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to
be laid upon him in honour. Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling,
that he shall wear the mark of the king? Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?
FOR what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what is it to cease breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides,
that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered? ONLY when you drink from
the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain
top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs,
then shall you truly dance.

THE FAREWELL

AND now it was evening. And Almitra the seeress said, “Blessed be this
day and this place and your spirit that has spoken.”

And he answered, Was it I who spoke? Was I not also a listener? THEN he descended
the steps of the Temple and all the people followed him. And he reached his
ship and stood upon the deck. And facing the people again, he raised his voice
and said: People of Orphalese, the wind bids me leave you. Less hasty am I than
the wind, yet I must go. We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way, begin
no day where we have ended another day; and no sunrise finds us where sunset
left us. Even while the earth sleeps we travel. We are the seeds of the tenacious
plant, and it is in our ripeness and our fullness of heart that we are given
to the wind and are scattered. BRIEF were my days among you, and briefer still
the words I have spoken. But should my voice fade in your ears, and my love
vanish in your memory, then I will come again, And with a richer heart and lips
more yielding to the spirit will I speak. Yea, I shall return with the tide,
And though death may hide me, and the greater silence enfold me, yet again will
I seek your under standing. And not in vain will I seek. If aught I have said
is truth, that truth shall reveal itself in a clearer voice, and in words more
kin to your thoughts. I GO with the wind, people of Orphalese, but not down
into emptiness;

And if this day is not a fulfillment of your needs and my love, then let it
be a promise till another day. Man’s needs change, but not his love, nor his
desire that his love should satisfy his needs. Know, therefore, that from the
greater silence I shall return. The mist that drifts away at dawn, leaving but
dew in the fields, shall rise and gather into a cloud and then fall down in
rain. And not unlike the mist have I been. In the stillness of the night I have
walked in your streets, and my spirit has entered your houses, And your heart-beats
were in my heart, and your breath was upon my face, and I knew you all. Aye,
I knew your joy and your pain, and in your sleep your dreams were my dreams.
And oftentimes I was among you a lake among the mountains. I mirrored the summits
in you and the bending slopes, and even the passing flocks of your thoughts
and your desires. And to my silence came the laughter of your children in streams,
and the longing of your youths in rivers. And when they reached my depth the
streams and the rivers ceased not yet to sing. BUT sweeter still than laughter
and greater than longing came to me. It was the boundless in you; The vast man
in whom you are all but cells and sinews; He in whose chant all your singing
is but a soundless throbbing. It is in the vast man that you are vast, And in
beholding him that I beheld you and loved you.

For what distances can love reach that are not in that vast sphere? What visions,
what expectations and what presumptions can outsoar that flight? Like a giant
oak tree covered with apple blossoms is the vast man in you. His might binds
you to the earth, his fragrance lifts you into space, and in his durability
you are deathless. You have been told that, even like a chain, you are as weak
as your weakest link. This is but half the truth. You are also as strong as
your strongest link. To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the power
of ocean by the frailty of its foam. To judge you by your failures is to cast
blame upon the seasons for their inconstancy. AYE, you are like an ocean, And
though heavy-grounded ships await the tide upon your shores, yet, even like
an ocean, you cannot hasten your tides. And like the seasons you are also, And
though in your winter you deny your spring, Yet spring, reposing within you,
smiles in her drowsiness and is not offended. Think not I say these things in
order that you may say the one to the other, “He praised us well. “He
saw but the good in us.” I only speak to you in words of that which you
yourselves know in thought.

And what is word knowledge but a shadow of wordless knowledge? Your thoughts
and my words are waves from a sealed memory that keeps records of our yesterdays,
And of the ancient days when the earth knew not us nor herself, And of nights
when earth was upwrought with confusion. WISE men have come to you to give you
of their wisdom. I came to take of your wisdom: And behold I have found that
which is greater than wisdom. It is a flame spirit in you ever gathering more
of itself, While you, heedless of its expansion, bewail the withering of your
days. It is life in quest of life in bodies that fear the grave. THERE are no
graves here. These mountains and plains are a cradle and a stepping-stone. Whenever
you pass by the field where you have laid your ancestors look well thereupon,
and you shall see yourselves and your children dancing hand in hand. Verily
you often make merry without knowing. OTHERS have come to you to whom for golden
promises made unto you faith you have given but riches and power and glory.
Less than a promise have I given, and yet more generous have you been to me.
You have given me my deeper thirsting after life. Surely there is no greater
gift to a man than that which turns all his aims into parching lips and all
life into a fountain. And in this lies my honour and my reward,–

That whenever I come to the fountain to drink I find the living water itself
thirsty; And it drinks me while I drink it. SOME of you have deemed me proud
and over shy to receive gifts. Too proud indeed am I to receive wages, but not
gifts. And though I have eaten berries among the hills when you would have had
me sit at your board, And slept in the portico of the temple when you would
gladly have sheltered me, Yet it was not your loving mindfulness of my days
and my nights that made food sweet to my mouth and girdled my sleep with visions?
FOR this I bless you most: You give much and know not that you give at all.
Verily the kindness that gazes upon itself in a mirror turns to stone, And a
good deed that calls itself by tender names becomes the parent to a curse. AND
some of you have called me aloof, and drunk with my own aloneness, And you have
said, “He holds council with the trees of the forest, but not with men.
“He sits alone on hill-tops and looks down upon our city.” True it
is that I have climbed the hills and walked in remote places. How could I have
seen you save from a great height or a great distance? How can one be indeed
near unless he be far?

AND others among you called unto me, not in words, and they said: “Stranger,
stranger, lover of unreachable heights, why dwell you among the summits where
eagles build their nests? “Why seek you the unattainable? “What storms
would you trap in your net, “And what vaporous birds do you hunt in the
sky? “Come and be one of us. “Descend and appease your hunger with
our bread and quench your thirst with our wine.” In the solitude of their
souls they said these things; But were their solitude deeper they would have
known that I sought but the secret of your joy and your pain, And I hunted only
your larger selves that walk the sky. BUT the hunter was also the hunted; For
many of my arrows left my bow only to seek my own breast. And the flier was
also the creeper; For when my wings were spread in the sun their shadow upon
the earth was a turtle. And I the believer was also the doubter; For often have
I put my finger in my own wound that I might have the greater belief in you
and the greater knowledge of you. AND it is with this belief and this knowledge
that I say, 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.
It is not a thing that crawls into the sun for warmth

or digs holes into darkness for safety, But a thing free, a spirit that envelops
the earth and moves in the ether. IF these be vague words, then seek not to
clear them. Vague and nebulous is the beginning of all things, but not their
end, And I fain would have you remember me as a beginning. Life, and all that
lives, is conceived in the mist and not in the crystal. And who knows but a
crystal is mist in decay? THIS would I have you remember in remembering me:
That which seems most feeble and bewildered in you is the strongest and most
determined. Is it not your breath that has erected and hardened the structure
of your bones? And is it not a dream which none of you remember having dreamt,
that built your city and fashioned all there is in it? Could you but see the
tides of that breath you would cease to see all else, And if you could hear
the whispering of the dream you would hear no other sound. BUT you do not see,
nor do you hear, and it is well. The veil that clouds your eyes shall be lifted
by the hands that wove it, And the clay that fills your ears shall be pierced
by those fingers that kneaded it. And you shall see. And you shall hear. Yet
you shall not deplore having known blindness,

nor regret having been deaf. For in that day you shall know the hidden purposes
in all things, And you shall bless darkness as you would bless light. AFTER
saying these things he looked about him, and he saw the pilot of his ship standing
by the helm and gazing now at the full sails and now at the distance. And he
said: Patient, over patient, is the captain of my ship. The wind blows, and
restless are the sails; Even the rudder begs direction; Yet quietly my captain
awaits my silence. And these my mariners, who have heard the choir of the greater
sea, they too have heard me patiently. Now they shall wait no longer. I am ready.
The stream has reached the sea, and once more the great mother holds her son
against her breast. FARE you well, people of Orphalese. This day has ended.
It is closing upon us even as the water-lily upon its own to-morrow. What was
given us here we shall keep, And if it suffices not, then again must we come
together and together stretch our hands unto the giver. Forget not that I shall
come back to you. A little while, and my longing shall gather dust and foam

for another body. A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another
woman shall bear me. FAREWELL to you and the youth I have spent with you. It
was but yesterday we met in a dream. You have sung to me in my aloneness, and
I of your longings have built a tower in the sky. But now our sleep has fled
and our dream is over, and it is no longer dawn. The noontide is upon us and
our half waking has turned to fuller day, and we must part. If in the twilight
of memory we should meet once more, we shall speak again together and you shall
sing to me a deeper song. And if our hands should meet in another dream we shall
build another tower in the sky. SO saying he made a signal to the seamen, and
straightaway they weighed anchor and cast the ship loose from its moorings,
and they moved eastward. And a cry came from the people as from a single heart,
and it rose into the dusk and was carried out over the sea like a great trumpeting.
Only Almitra was silent, gazing after the ship until it had vanished into the
mist. And when all the people were dispersed she still stood alone upon the
sea-wall, remembering in her heart his saying: “A LITTLE while, a moment
of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me.”

End of this Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook
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Great Poets – A Collection of my favorites

Edgar A. Guest, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Helen Steiner Rice. Poets I love! These are poems from some of my favorite writers.

Edgar Albert Guest

I was first introduced to the poetry of Edgar Guest when I was ten years old.  I fell in love with his writings and still have the book “Collected Verse” by Edgar Guest that was given to me as a child.

Edgar Albert Guest (August 20, 1881, Birmingham, England – August 5, 1959, Detroit, Michigan) (aka Eddie Guest) was a prolific American poet who was popular in the first half of the 20th Century and became known as the People’s Poet.

Click on the links below to display poems in each book.

• Over Here (war Time Rhymes)
• All That Matters
• The Path to Home
• Just Folks
• A Heap O’ Livin
• When Day is Done

Off Site

• Making the House a Home (English)

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (November 5, 1850–October 30, 1919) was an American author and poet. Her best-known work was Poems of Passion. Her most enduring work was “Solitude”, which contains the lines: “Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone”. Her autobiography, The Worlds and I, was published in 1918, a year before her death.   (From Wikipedia)

Click on the links below to display poems in each book.

• The Kingdom of Love
• Custer, and Other Poems
• Poetry of Ella Wheeler Wilcox
• Poems of Cheer
• Poems of Optimism

Helen Steiner Rice (1900 – 1981) was an American writer of religious and inspirational poetry.

Helen Steiner was born in Lorain, Ohio on May 19, 1900. Her father, a railroad worker, died in the influenza epidemic of 1918.

She began work for a public utility and progressed to the position of advertising manager, which was rare for a woman at that time.   She also became the Ohio State Chairman of the Women’s Public Information Committee of the Electric Light Association, and campaigned for women’s rights and improved working conditions.  Visit her official site here.

• Some Poems by Helen Steiner Rice

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