Appendix: You Have Your Lebanon and I Have My Lebanon

You have your Lebanon and its dilemma. I have my Lebanon and its beauty. Your Lebanon is an area for men from the West and men from the East. My Lebanon is a flock of birds fluttering in the early morning as sheperds lead their sheep into the meadow and rising in the evening as farmers return from their fields and vineyards.

You have your Lebanon and its people. I have my Lebanon and its people . . .

Let me tell you who are the children of my Lebanon. They are the farmers who would turn fallow field into garden and grove.

They are the shepherds who lead their flocks through the valleys to be fattened for your table meat and your woolens.

They are the vine-pressers who press the grape to wine and boil it to syrup.

They are the parents who tend the nurseries, the mothers who spin silen yarn.

They are the farmers who harvest the wheat and the wives who gather the sheaves.

They are the builders, the potters, the weavers and the bell-casters.

They are the poets who pour their souls in new cups.

They are those who migrate with nothing but courage in their hearts and strength in their arms but return with wealth in their hands and a wreath of glory upon their heads.

They are the victorious wherever they go and loved and respected wherever they settle.

They are the ones born in huts but who died in palaces of learning.

These are the children of Lebanon; they are the lamps that cannot be snuffed by the wind and the salt which remains unspoiled through the ages.

They are the ones who are steadily moving toward perfection, beauty and truth.

What will remain of your Lebanon after a century . . . ? Except bragging, lying and stupidity . . . ? I say to you, while the conscience of time listened to me that the songs of a maiden collecting herbs in the valleys of Lebanon will outlast all the uttering of the most exalted prattler among you . . .

You have your Lebanon and I have my Lebanon.

Kahlil Gibran, circa 1928 —

during Mandate of Lebanon