Analysis of On Pleasure
Kahlil Gibran 1883 (Bsharri, Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate) – 1931 ( New York City)
Then a hermit, who visited the city once a year, came forth and said, Speak to us of Pleasure.
And he answered, saying:
Pleasure is a freedom-song,
But it is not freedom.
It is the blossoming of your desires,
But it is not their fruit.
It is a depth calling unto a height,
But it is not the deep nor the high.
It is the caged taking wing,
But it is not space encompassed.
Ay, in very truth, pleasure is a freedom-song.
And I fain would have you sing it with fullness of heart; yet I would not have you lose your hearts in the singing.
Some of your youth seek pleasure as if it were all, and they are judged and rebuked.
I would not judge nor rebuke them. I would have them seek.
For they shall find pleasure, but not her alone;
Seven are her sisters, and the least of them is more beautiful than pleasure.
Have you not heard of the man who was digging in the earth for roots and found a treasure?
And some of your elders remember pleasures with regret like wrongs committed in drunkenness.
But regret is the beclouding of the mind and not its chastisement.
They should remember their pleasures with gratitude, as they would the harvest of a summer.
Yet if it comforts them to regret, let them be comforted.
And there are among you those who are neither young to seek nor old to remember;
And in their fear of seeking and remembering they shun all pleasures, lest they neglect the spirit or offend against it.
But even in their foregoing is their pleasure.
And thus they too find a treasure though they dig for roots with quivering hands.
But tell me, who is he that can offend the spirit?
Shall the nightingale offend the stillness of the night, or the firefly the stars?
And shall your flame or your smoke burden the wind?
Think you the spirit is a still pool which you can trouble with a staff?
Oftentimes in denying yourself pleasure you do but store the desire in the recesses of your being.
Who knows but that which seems omitted today, waits for tomorrow?
Even your body knows its heritage and its rightful need and will not be deceived.
And your body is the harp of your soul,
And it is yours to bring forth sweet music from it or confused sounds.
And now you ask in your heart, “How shall we distinguish that which is good in pleasure from that which is not good?”
Go to your fields and your gardens, and you shall learn that it is the pleasure of the bee to gather honey of the flower,
But it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee.
For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life,
And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love,
And to both, bee and flower, the giving and the receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy.
People of Orphalese, be in your pleasures like the flowers and the bees.
Scheme | ABCXXDXXBXCB XXXAA XDAX AXAXXXXX BXXXX XAEXXE X |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 101011000101011101111110 011010 1010101 111110 11010011010 111111 1101101001 111101101 1101101 11111010 101011010101 01111111110111111111110010 1111110111010111001 1111101111111 11111011001 1010100011111100110 111110111100011101010 01111001010101110100100 1011011010111 110101101101110101010 111101101111100 01101111110111111010 001111000100111101101010101011 110010101110 011110101111111001 1111111101010 1010001010101101001 01111111001 11010101111110101 100010011011110010001001110 111111010011101 101101110001101011101 0110101111 0111111110111011 01110111110101111010111111 111101100111111010101110101010 11110010101011110101 1101010101011 01010011010011 01110100100001011010101100 1011101101010001 |
Closest metre | Iambic octameter |
Characters | 2,895 |
Words | 524 |
Sentences | 31 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 12, 5, 4, 8, 5, 6, 1 |
Lines Amount | 41 |
Letters per line (avg) | 52 |
Words per line (avg) | 13 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 306 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 75 |
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"On Pleasure" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 24 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/54020/on-pleasure>.
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