On this day in 1931, Gibran Khalil Gibran died in New York City at the age of 48

"Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain."
--from "The Prophet" (1923) By Khalil Gibran

Gibran’s masterpiece, The Prophet, is one of the most beloved spiritual classics of our time. It has sold millions of copies in more than forty languages since it was first published in 1923. The Prophet contains powerful words of wisdom on such essential subjects as marriage, children, friendship, work, and pleasure—words that readers from around the world have found inspirational and life-changing. A poet, artist, and mystic, Gibran was born to a poor Christian family in Lebanon and emigrated to the United States as an adolescent, where he began studying art. The twenty-eight poetic essays collected in The Prophet are illustrated with twelve of his full-page drawings. Perhaps no other twentieth-century writer has touched the hearts and minds of so remarkably varied and widespread a readership.

Kahlil Gibran nació en el Líbano en 1883 y murió en Nueva York en 1931. Su familia migró a los Estados Unidos en 1895. En su juventud, los dibujos de Gibran llamaron la atención de sus profesores y, entonces, fue introducido al artista, fotógrafo y editor vanguardista de Boston, Fred Holland Day, quien incentivó y apoyó los proyectos creativos de Gibran. Un editor utilizó algunos de los dibujos de Gibran para las portadas de libros en 1898 y Gibran inauguró su primera exhibición de arte en 1904 en Boston. Gibran estudió arte con Auguste Rodin en Paris durante dos años. Luego, estudió arte en Boston. Aunque la mayoría de los primeros escritos de Gibran están en árabe, la mayoría de su obra publicada después de 1918 está en ingles. La obra más conocida de Gibran es El profeta, un libro compuesto por veintiséis ensayos poéticos. 
Read an Excerpt
ON LOVE

Then said Almitra, Speak to us of Love.

And he raised his head and looked upon the peo­ple, and there fell a stillness upon them. And with a great voice he said:

When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.

Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,

So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life’s heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure,

Then it is better for you that you cover your na­kedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor,

Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.

• • •

Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.

Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;

For love is sufficient unto love.

When you love you should not say, “God is in my heart,” but rather, “I am in the heart of God.”

And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ec­stasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.