The Great Longing

By Kahlil Gibran

Here I sit between my brother the mountain and my sister the sea.

We three are one in loneliness, and the love that binds us together

is deep and strong and strange.  Nay, it is deeper than my sister’s

depth and stronger than my brother’s strength, and stranger than

the strangeness of my madness.

Aeons upon aeons have passed since the first grey dawn made us

visible to one another; and though we have seen the birth and the

fullness and the death of many worlds, we are still eager and young.

We are young and eager and yet we are mateless and unvisited, and

though we lie in unbroken half embrace, we are uncomforted.  And

what comfort is there for controlled desire and unspent passion?

Whence shall come the flaming god to warm my sister’s bed?  And

what she-torrent shall quench my brother’s fire?  And who is the

woman that shall command my heart?

In the stillness of the night my sister murmurs in her sleep the

fire-god’s unknown name, and my brother calls afar upon the cool

and distant goddess.  But upon whom I call in my sleep I know not.

                                            *        *         *

Here I sit between my brother the mountain and my sister the sea.

We three are one in loneliness, and the love that binds us together

is deep and strong and strange.