On Joy and Sorrow

On Joy and Sorrow
from
The Prophet
by Khalil Gibran

Then a woman said, Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.
And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.


Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
When the reassure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

This Quintessence of Dust

"I have of late,
—but wherefore I know not,—
lost all my mirth,
forgone all custom of exercises;
and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame,
the earth,
seems to me a sterile promontory;
this most excellent canopy,
the air, look you,
this brave o’erhanging firmament,
this majestical roof fretted with golden fire,
why, it appears no other thing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.

What a piece of work is a man!
How noble in reason!
how infinite in faculty!
in form, in moving, how express and admirable!
in action how like an angel!
in apprehension how like a god!
the beauty of the world!
the paragon of animals!
And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?
man delights not me..."

- Hamlet II.ii

You are Cloven Apart

But now, you are twain, you are cloven apart,

Flesh of his flesh, but heart of my heart;

- from The Triumph of Time

by Algernon Charles Swinburne

This Fruit of My Heart

It will grow not again, this fruit of my heart,

      Smitten with sunbeams, ruined with rain.

- from The Triumph of Time

by Algernon Charles Swinburne

"I cried to dream again"

"...and then in dreaming
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked
I cried to dream again."

- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 3.2

"Love is Not All..."

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.

- Edna St. Vincent Millay
(complete poem here)