Phumiah, the high Priestess of Sidon
An invocation
- Take your harps and let me sing.
- Beat your strings, the silver and the gold;
- For I would sing the dauntless Man
- Who slew the dragon of the valley,
- Then gazed down with pity
- Upon the thing He had slain.
- Take your harps and sing with me
- The lofty Oak upon the height,
- The sky-hearted and the ocean-handed Man,
- Who kissed the pallid lips of death,
- Yet quivers now upon the mouth of life.
- Take your harps and let us sing
- The fearless Hunter on the hill,
- Who marked the beast, and shot His viewless arrow,
- And brought the horn and tusk
- Down to the earth.
- Take your harps and sing with me
- The valiant Youth who conquered the mountain cities,
- And the cities of the plain that coiled like serpents in the sand.
- He fought not against pygmies but against gods
- Who hungered for our flesh and thirsted for our blood.
- And like the first Golden Hawk
- He would rival only eagles;
- For His wings were vast and proud
- And would not outwing the less winged.
- Take your harps and sing with me
- The joyous song of sea and cliff.
- The gods are dead,
- And they are lying still
- In the forgotten isle of a forgotten sea.
- And He who slew them sits upon His throne.
- He was but a youth.
- Spring had not yet given Him full beard,
- And His summer was still young in His field.
- Take your harps and sing with me
- The tempest in the forest
- That breaks the dry branch and the leafless twig,
- Yet sends the living root to nestle deeper at the breast of earth.
- Take your harps and sing with me
- The deathless song of our Beloved.
- Nay, my maidens, stay your hands.
- Lay by your harps.
- We cannot sing Him now.
- The faint whisper of our song cannot reach His tempest,
- Nor pierce the majesty of His silence.
- Lay by your harps and gather close around me,
- I would repeat His words to you,
- And I would tell you of His deeds,
- For the echo of His voice is deeper than our passion.
- --oOo-- -
Khalil Gibran
Introductory biography
Spirits Rebellious
The Broken Wings
A Tear and a Smile
The Madman
The Forerunner
The Prophet
The New Frontier
Sand and Foam
Jesus, The Son Of Man
James the son of Zebedee
Anna the mother of Mary
Assaph called the Orator of Tyre
Mary Magdalen
Philemon, a Greek Apothecary
Simon who was called Peter
Caiaphas
Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward
Rafca
A Persian Philosopher in Damascus
David, one of his followers
Luke
Matthew
John the son of Zebedee
A young priest of Capernaum
A rich levi in the neighborhood of the Nazarene
A shepherd in South Lebanon
John the Baptist
Joseph of Arimathea
Nathaniel
Saba of Antioch
Salome to a woman friend
Rachael, a woman disciple
Cleopas of Bethroune
Naaman of the Gadarenes
Thomas
Elmadam the Logician
One of the Mary's
Rumanous, a Greek poet
Levi, a disciple
A widow in Galilee
Judas the cousin of Jesus
The man from the desert
Peter
Melachi of Babylon, an astronomer
A philosopher
Uriah, an old man of Nazareth
Nicodemus the poet
Joseph of Arimathea
Georgus of Beirut
Mary Magdalen
Jotham of Nazareth to a Roman
Ephraim of Jericho
Barca, a merchant of Tyre
Phumiah, the high Priestess of Sidon
Benjamin the scribe
Zacchaeus
Hannah of Bethsaida
Manasseh
Jephtha of Caesarea
John the beloved disciple
Mannus the Pompeiian, to a Greek
Pontius Pilatus
Bartholomew in Ephesus
Matthew
Andrew on prostitutes
A rich man on possessions
John at Patmos
Peter on the neighbor
A cobbler in Jerusalem
Suzannah of Nazareth
Joseph surnamed Justus
Philip
Birbarah of Yammouni
Pilate's wife to a Roman lady
A man outside of Jerusalem
Sarkis, an old Greek shepherd
Annas the high priest
A woman, one of Mary's neighbors
Ahaz the portly
Barabbas
Claudius a Roman sentinel
James the brother of the Lord
Simon the Cyrene
Cyborea
The woman in Byblos
Mary Magdalen thirty years later
A man from Lebanon
The Earth Gods
The Wanderer
Al-Nay
The Garden of the Prophet
Lazarus and His Beloved
Satan
My Countrymen
I Believe In You
Your Thought And Mine
You Have Your Lebanon
History and the Nation
The Vision
Visual art