KAHLIL GIBRAN - YOU HAVE YOUR LEBANON AND I HAVE MY LEBANON
You have your
My
You have your
Yours are those whose souls were born in the hospitals of the West; they are as ship without rudder or sail upon a raging sea.... They are strong and eloquent among themselves but weak and dumb among Europeans.
They are brave, the liberators and the reformers, but only in their own area. But they are cowards, always led backwards by the Europeans. They are those who croak like frogs boasting that they have rid themselves of their ancient, tyrannical enemy, but the truth of the matter is that this tyrannical enemy still hides within their own souls. They are the slaves for whom time had exchanged rusty chains for shiny ones so that they thought themselves free. These are the children of your
Who among them dare to say, "My life was a drop of blood in the veins of
Those are the children of your
Let me tell you who are the children of my
They are farmers who would turn the fallow field into garden and grove.
They are the shepherds who lead their flocks through the valleys to be fattened for your table meat and your woollens.
They are the vine-pressers who press the grape to wine and boil it to syrup.
They are the parents who tend the nurseries, the mothers who spin the silken yarn.
They are the husbands who harvest the wheat and the wives who gather the sheaves.
They are the builders, the potters, the weavers and the bell-casters.
They are the poets who pour their souls in new cups.
They are those who migrate with nothing but courage in their hearts and strength in their arms but who return with wealth in their hands and a wreath of glory upon their heads.
They are the victorious wherever they go and loved and respected wherever they settle.
They are the ones born in huts but who died in palaces of learning.
These are the children of
They are the ones who are steadily moving toward perfection, beauty, and truth.
What will remain of your
Do you believe life will accept a patched garment for a dress? Verily, I say to you that an olive plant in the hills of
I say to you, while the conscience of time listened to me, that the songs of a maiden collecting herbs in the valleys of
You have your
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