The ProphetLong 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?A voice cannot carry the tongue and the lips that give it wings. Alone must it seek the ether. And alone and without his nest shall the eagle fly across the sun.If this indeed be the our 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.And ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.But if your fear you would seek only loves peace and loves pleasure, then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of loves 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.And think not you can direct the course of love, if it finds you worthy, directs you course. Love has no other desire but to fill itself.Love one another but not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.Give your hearts, but not into each others keeping.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 others shadow.They can 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 tomorrow, which thh you cannot visit, not even in you dreams. You may strive to like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.And what is fear of need but need itself? Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, thirst that is unquenchable?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 breather its fragrance into space.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?But since you must kill to eat, and rob the young of its mothers 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 many.But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earths 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 lifes inmost secret.And I say that life indeed darkness save when there is urge, and all urge is blind save when there is knowledge, and all knowledge is vain save when there is work, and all work is empty save when there is love; and when you work love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.But I say, not in sleep but in the over-wakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass; and he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving. Work is love made visibleYour joy is you sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.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.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.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.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.Have you p