"THE EARTH GODS" 
by Gibran Khalil Gibran


THIRD GOD 


Love triumphs. 
The white and green of love beside a lake, 
And the proud majesty of love in tower or balcony; 
Love in a garden or in the desert untrodden, 
Love is our lord and master. 
It is not a wanton decay of the flesh, 
Nor the crumbling of desire 
When desire and self are wrestling; 
Nor is it flesh that takes arms against the spirit. 
Love rebels not. 
It only leaves the trodden way of ancient destinies for the sacred grove, 
To sing and dance its secret to eternity. 
Love is youth with chains broken, 
Manhood made free from the sod, 
And womanhood warmed by the flame 
And shining with the light of heaven deeper than our heaven. 
Love is a distant laughter in the spirit. 
It is a wild assault that hushes you to your awakening. 
It is a new dawn unto the earth, 
A day not yet achieved in your eyes or mine, 
But already achieved in its own greater heart. 

Brothers, my brothers, 
The bride comes from the heart of dawn, 
And the bridegroom from the sunset. 
There is a wedding in the valley. 
A day too vast for recording. 


SECOND GOD 




Transfer interrupted!

t been since the first morn 
Discharged the plains to hill and vale, 
And thus shall it be to the last even-tide. 
Our roots have brought forth the dancing branches in the valley, 
And we are the flowering of the song-scent that rises to the heights. 
Immortal and mortal, twin rivers calling to the sea. 
There is no emptiness between call and call, 
But only in the ear. 
Time maketh our listening more certain, 
And giveth it more desire. 
Only doubt in mortal hushes the sound. 
We have outsoared the doubt. 
Man is a child of our younger heart. 
Man is god in slow arising; 
And betwixt his joy and his pain 
Lies our sleeping, and the dreaming thereof. 


FIRST GOD 


Let the singer cry, and let the dancer whirl her feet 
And let me be content awhile. 
Let my soul be serene this night. 
Perchance I may drowse, and drowsing 
Behold a brighter world 
And creatures more starry supple to my mind. 


THIRD GOD 


Now I will rise and strip me of time and space, 
And I wil dance in that field untrodden, 
And the dancer's feet will move with my feet; 
And I will sing in that higher air, 
And a human voice will throb within my voice. 

We shall pass into the twilight; 
Perchance to wake to the dawn of another world. 
But love shall stay, 
And his finger-marks shall not be erased. 

The blessed forge burns, 
The sparks rise, and each spark is a sun. 
Better it is for us, and wiser, 
To seek a shadowed nook and sleep in our earth divintiy, 
And let love, human and frail, command the coming day.