The Prophet, Part 1, Al Mustafa, the chosen and the beloved, who was a dawn unto his own day,

had waited 12 years in the city of Orphalese for his ship

that was to return and bear him back to the Isle of his birth.

And in the 12th year, on the seventh day of Yule, the month of reaping, he climbed the hill without

the city walls and looked seaward, and he beheld his ship coming with a mist.

Then the gates of his heart were flung open and his joy flew far from the sea and he closed

his eyes and prayed in the silences of his soul. But as he descended the hill a sadness came upon him and he thought in his heart

how shall I go in peace and without sorrow nay not without a wound in the spirit shall I leave this city.

Long were the days of pain I have spent within its walls and long were the nights of alowness,

and who can depart from his pain and his alowness without regret.

Too many fragments of the spirit have I scattered in these streets and too many are the children

of my longing that walk naked among these hills and I cannot withdraw from them without a burden

and an ink.

It is not a garment I cast off this day, but a skin that I tear with my own hands. Nor is it a thought I leave behind me, but a heart made sweet with hunger and with thirst.

Yet I cannot carry, I cannot tarry longer the sea that calls all things on

to her calls me and I must embark for to say though the hours burned in the night, is to freeze and to crystallize and be bound in a mold.

Fain, would I take with me all that is here, but how shall I?

A voice cannot carry the tongue and the lips that gave it wings. Alone must it seek the other.

And alone and without his nest shall the eagle fly across the sun.

Now when he reached the foot of the hill he turned again towards the sea and he saw his ship

approaching the harbour.

And upon her prowl the mariners the men of his own land.

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