[MD] The Madman: The Perfect World

[MarshaV]

The Madman:  The Perfect World    by Khalil Gibran



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

Gentle Destiny that watchest over us, mad, wandering spirits, hear me:

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

I, a human chaos, a nebula of confused elements, I move amongst 
finished worlds -- peoples of complete laws and pure order, whose 
thoughts are assorted, whose dreams are arranged, and whose visions 
are enrolled and registered.

Their virtues, O God, are measured, their sins are weighed, and even 
the countless things that pass in the dim twilight of neither sin nor 
virtue are recorded and catalogued.

Here days and nights are divided into seasons of conduct and governed 
by rules of blameless accuracy.

To eat, to drink, to sleep, to cover one's nudity, and then to be 
weary in due time.

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

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

To rob a neighbour with a smile, to bestow gifts with a graceful wave 
of the hand, to praise prudently, to blame cautiously, to destroy a 
soul with a word, to burn a body with a breath, and then to wash the 
hands when the day's work is done.

To love according to an established order, to entertain one's best 
self in a pre-conceived manner, to worship the gods becomingly, to 
intrigue the devils artfully -- and then to forget all as though 
memory were dead.

To fancy with a motive, to contemplate with consideration, to be 
happy sweetly, to suffer nobly -- and then to empty the cup so that 
tomorrow may fill it again.

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

It is a perfect world, a world of consummate excellence, a world of 
supreme wonders, the ripest fruit in God's garden, the master-thought 
of the universe.

But why should I be here, O God, I a green seed of unfulfilled 
passion, a mad tempest that seeketh neither east nor west, a 
bewildered 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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Greetings,

I hope you all forgive me for posting these little gems.  I have them 
playing randomly on my iPod via the Shuffle option, it's uncanny the 
song or piece of music that plays following a parable.

Kudrun


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