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From: ghassoun@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au (George Hassoun) Date: 9 August, 1993 Subject: ``Dead Are My People'' (Part 2 of 5 ) - By Gibran Khalil Gibran GIBRAN-GIBRAN-GIBRAN-GIBRAN-GIBRAN-GIBRAN-GIBRAN-GIBRANG I I B DEAD ARE MY PEOPLE (Part 2 of 5) B R R A ( Written in exile during the famine in A N Syria [and Lebanon] in World War I ) N - - G G I If I were hungry and living amid my I B Famished people, and persecuted among B R My oppressed countrymen, the burden R A Of the black days would be lighter A N Upon my restless dreams, and the N - Obscurity of the night would be less - G Dark before my hollow eyes and my G I Crying heart and my wounded soul. I B For he who shares with his people B R Their sorrow and agony will feel a R A Supreme comfort created only by A N Suffering IN sacrifice. And he will N - Be at peace with himself when he dies - G Innocent with his fellow innocents. G I I B But I am not living with my hungry B R And persecuted people who are walking R A In the procession of death toward A N Martyrdom.... I am here beyond the N - Broad seas living in the shadow of - G Tranquillity, and in the sunshine of G I Peace.... I am afar from the pitiful I B Arena and the distressed, and cannot B R Be proud of aught, not even of my own R A Tears. A N N - What can an exiled son do for his - G Starving people, and of what value G I Unto them is the lamentation of an I B Absent poet? B R R A A N ``The Prophet of Lebanon'' N - - G ( To be continued...) G I I GIBRAN-GIBRAN-GIBRAN-GIBRAN-GIBRAN-GIBRAN-GIBRAN-GIBRANG [Above poem was quoted from a book entitled "A Treasury of Kahlil Gibran" (note the spelling and the name order), edited by Martin L. Wolf and translated from Arabic by Anthony Riscallah Ferris, The Citadel Press, New York, 1951.] | |
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