Two infants 
by Gibran Khalil Gibran

A prince stood on the balcony of his palace addressing a great multitude summoned for the
occasion and said, "Let me offer you and this whole fortunate country my congratulations
upon the birth of a new prince who will carry the name of my noble family, and of whom you
will be justly proud. He is the new bearer of a great and illustrious ancestry, and upon him
depends the brillant future of this realm. Sing and be merry!" The voices of the throngs, full of
joy and thankfulness, flooded the sky with exhilarating song, welcoming the new tyrant who
would affix the yoke of oppression 
to their necks by ruling the weak with bitter authority, and exploiting their bodies and killing
their souls. For that destiny, the people were singing and drinking ecstatically to the healy of
the new Emir. 

Another child entered life and that kingdom at the same time. While the crowds were
glorifying the strong and belittling themselves by singing praise to a potential despot, and
while the angels of heaven were weeping over the people's weakness and servitude, a sick
woman was thinking. She lived in an old, deserted hovel and, lying in her hard bed besider
her newly-born infant wrapped with ragged swaddles, was starving to death. She was a
penurious and miserable young wife neglected by humanity; her husband had fallen into the
trap of death set by the prince's oppression, leaving a solitary woman to whom God had sent,
that night, a tiny companion to prevent her from working and sustaining life. 

As the mass dispersed and silence was restored to the vicinity, the wretched woman placed
the infant on her lap and looked into his face and wept as if she were to baptize him with
tears. And with a hunger-weakened voice she spoke to the child saying, "Why have you left
the spiritual world and come to share with me the bitterness of earthly life? Why have you
deserted the angels and the spacious firmament and come to this miserable land of humans,
filled with agony, oppression, and heartlessness? I have nothing to give you except tears; will
you be nourished on tears instead of milk? I have no silk clothes to put on you; will my naked,
shivering arms give you warmth? The little animals graze in the pasture and return safely to
their shed; and the small birds pick the seeds and sleep placidly between the brances. But
you, my beloved, have naught save a loving but destitute mother." 

Then she took the infant to her withered breast and clasped her arms around him as if wanting
to join the two bodies in one, as before. She lifted her burning eyes slowly toward heaven and
cried, "God! Have mercy on my unfortunate countrymen!" 

At that moment the clouds floated from the face of the moon, whose beams pentrated the
transom of that poor home and fell upon two corpses.