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 understanding . And not n 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 . Ay , I knew your joy and your pain , and in your sleep your dreams were my dreams . And oftentimes I was among you ’ re 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 . Ay , 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 t whom for golden promises made unto your 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 an all life into a fountain . An 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 was it not your loving mindfulness of my days and my nights that made food sweet to my mouth 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 form 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 builded 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 tomorrow . 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 straightway they weighted 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 . ” http : / / www . kahlil . org