“The Perfect World”

&

Kahlil Gibran

God of lost souls, thou who are lost amongst the gods, hear me:

Gentle Destiny that watchest over us, mad, wandering spirits, hearme:

I dwell in the midst of a perfect race, I the most imperfect.

I, a human chaos, a nebula of confused elements, I move amongstfinished worlds—peoples of complete laws and pure order, whosethoughts are assorted, whose dreams are arranged, and whose visionsare enrolled and registered.

Their virtues, O god, are measured, their sins are weighed, andeven the countless things that pass in the dim twilight of neithersin nor virtue are recorded and catalogued.

Here days and night are divided into seasons of conduct and governedby rules of blameless accuracy.

To eat, to drink, to sleep, to cover one’s nudity, and then to beweary in due time.

To work, to play, to sing, to dance, and then to lie still whenthe clock strikes the hour.

To think thus, to feel thus much, and then to cease thinking andfeeling when a certain star rises above yonder horizon.

To rob a neighbour with a smile, to bestow gifts with a gracefulwave of the hand, to praise prudently, to blame cautiously, todestroy a sound with a word, to burn a body with a breath, and thento wash the hands when the day’s work is done.

To love according to an established order, to entertain one’s bestself in a preconceived manner, to worship the gods becomingly,to intrigue the devils artfully—and then to forget all as thoughmemory were dead.

To fancy with a motive, to contemplate with consideration, to behappy sweetly, to suffer nobly—and then to empty the cup so thattomorrow may fill it again.

All these things, O God, are conceived with forethought, born withdetermination, nursed with exactness, governed by rules, directedby reason, and then slain and buried after a prescribed method.And even their silent graves that lie within the human soul aremarked and numbered.

It is a perfect world, a world of consummate excellence, a world ofsupreme wonders, the ripest fruit in God’s garden, the master-thoughtof the universe.

But why should I be here, O God, I a green seed of unfulfilledpassion, a mad tempest that seeketh neither east nor west, abewildered fragment from a burnt planet?

Why am I here, O God of lost souls, thou who art lost amongst the gods?

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