A little longer shall your city walls separate your
hearthsfrom your fields.
PEOPLE of Orphalese, beauty is life when life
unveils her holy face.
The wind and the sun will tear no holes in his
skin.
To judge you by your failures is to cast blame upon
the seasons fortheir inconstancy. ON LAWSTHEN a lawyer said, But what of our Laws,
master?
YOU are good when you are fully awake in your
speech.
SAY not, I have found the truth, but rather, I have
found a truth. Aye, I knew your joy and your pain, and in your sleep your dreamswere
my dreams.
Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when
all elsesings together in unison? And he answered:You delight in laying down
laws,Yet you delight more in breaking them. AND if you would know God, be not
therefore a solver of riddles. ON TALKINGAND then a scholar said, Speak of Talking.
YOU are good when you strive to give of yourself.
ON BEAUTYAND a poet said, Speak to us of Beauty.
SELF-KNOWLEDGEAND a man said, Speak to us of Self-Knowledge. Yet you are not evil
when you go thither limping. Even your body knows its heritage and its rightful
needand will not be deceived. Who among you does not feel that his power to love is
boundless?
And what is it to acknowledge the laws but to stoop
downand trace their shadows upon the earth? Would that you could meet the sun and
the wind with more of your skinand less of your raiment. THE tired and the weary
say, Beauty is of soft whisperings.
But you are eternity and you are the
mirror.
You shall not dwell in tombs made by the dead for
the living. For the breath of life is in the sunlight and the hand of lifeis in the
wind.
ON RELIGIONAND an old priest said, Speak to us of
Religion. AT night the watchmen of the city say, Beauty shall rise with the dawnfrom
the east. Who among you does not feel that his power to love is boundless? And he
answered, saying:You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the
earth. What visions, what expectations and what presumptionscan outsoar that
flight?
You have been told that, even like a chain, you are
as weakas your weakest link.
That which is you dwells above the mountain and
roves with the wind. For the law that delivered you into my hand shall deliver
meinto a mightier hand.
SAY not, I have found the truth, but rather, I have
found a truth. Shall the nightingale offend the stillness of the night,or the
firefly the stars? Yet you are not evil when you seek gain for yourself.