On Laws
From “The Prophet” by Kahlil Gibran
Then a lawyer said, But what of our
Laws, master?
And he answered:
You delight in laying down laws,
Yet you delight more in breaking them.
Like children playing by the ocean who
build sand-towers with constancy and
then destroy them with laughter.
But while you build your sand-towers the
ocean brings more sand to the shore,
And when you destroy them the ocean
laughs with you.
Verily the ocean laughs always with the
innocent.
But what of those to whom life is not
an ocean, and man-made laws are not
sand-towers,
But to whom life is a rock, and the law
a chisel with which they would carve it
in their own likeness? What of the
cripple who hates dancers?
What of the ox who loves his yoke and
deems the elk and deer of the forest
stray and vagrant things?
What of the old serpent who cannot shed
his skin, and calls all others naked and
shameless?
And of him who comes early to the
wedding-feast, and when over-fed and
tired goes his way saying that all
feasts are violation and all feasters
lawbreakers?
What shall I say of these save that
they too stand in the sunlight, but with
their backs to the sun?
They see only their shadows, and their
shadows are their laws.
And what is the sun to them but a caster
of shadows?
And what is it to acknowledge the
laws but to stoop down and trace their
shadows upon the earth?
But you who walk facing the sun, what
images drawn on the earth can hold
you?
You who travel with the wind, what
weather-vane shall direct your course?
What man’s law shall bind you if you
break your yoke but upon no man’s prison
door?
What laws shall you fear if you dance
but stumble against no man’s iron
chains?
And who is he that shall bring you to
judgment if you tear off your garment
yet leave it in no man’s path?
People of Orphalese, you can muffle the
drum, and you can loosen the strings
of the lyre, but who shall command the
skylark not to sing?
