Analysis of On Buying and Selling
Kahlil Gibran 1883 (Bsharri, Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate) – 1931 ( New York City)
And a merchant said, Speak to us of Buying and Selling.
And he answered and said:
To you the earth yields her fruit, and you shall not want if you but know how to fill your hands.
It is in exchanging the gifts of the earth that you shall find abundance and be satisfied.
Yet unless the exchange be in love and kindly justice, it will but lead some to greed and others to hunger.
When in the market place you toilers of the sea and fields and vineyards meet the weavers and the potters and the gatherers of spices,—
Invoke then the master spirit of the earth, to come into your midst and sanctify the scales and the reckoning that weighs value against value.
And suffer not the barren-handed to take part in your transactions, who would sell their words for your labour.
To such men you should say,
“Come with us to the field, or go with our brothers to the sea and cast your net;
For the land and the sea shall be bountiful to you even as to us.”
And if there come the singers and the dancers and the flute players,—buy of their gifts also.
For they too are gatherers of fruit and frankincense, and that which they bring, though fashioned of dreams, is raiment and food for your soul.
And before you leave the market place, see that no one has gone his way with empty hands.
For the master spirit of the earth shall not sleep peacefully upon the wind till the needs of the least of you are satisfied.
Scheme | XXABC XX CXXX XX AB |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 00101111110010 011001 110110101111111111111 1100100110111110100110 101001101010101111111010110 10010111101010101010001000100110 011010101011101110100010010011100110 0101010101110101011111111 111111 11110111110101010111 101001111001110111 0111010001000110111110 11111001101001111110111101111 001110101111111111101 101010101111100010110110111110 |
Characters | 1,464 |
Words | 270 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 2, 4, 2, 2 |
Lines Amount | 15 |
Letters per line (avg) | 74 |
Words per line (avg) | 18 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 221 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 53 |
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