Analysis of Two Infants II
Khalil Gibran 1883 (Bsharri) – 1931 (New York City)
A prince stood on the balcony of his palace addressing a great multitude summoned for the occasion and said, "Let me offer you and this whole fortunate country my congratulations upon the birth of a new prince who will carry the name of my noble family, and of whom you will be justly proud. He is the new bearer of a great and illustrious ancestry, and upon him depends the brilliant future of this realm. Sing and be merry!" The voices of the throngs, full of joy and thankfulness, flooded the sky with exhilarating song, welcoming the new tyrant who would affix the yoke of oppression to their necks by ruling the weak with bitter authority, and exploiting their bodies and killing their souls. For that destiny, the people were singing and drinking ecstatically to the heady of the new Emir.
Another child entered life and that kingdom at the same time. While the crowds were glorifying the strong and belittling themselves by singing praise to a potential despot, and while the angels of heaven were weeping over the people's weakness and servitude, a sick woman was thinking. She lived in an old, deserted hovel and, lying in her hard bed beside her newly born infant wrapped with ragged swaddles, was starving to death. She was a penurious and miserable young wife neglected by humanity; her husband had fallen into the trap of death set by the prince's oppression, leaving a solitary woman to whom God had sent, that night, a tiny companion to prevent her from working and sustaining life.
As the mass dispersed and silence was restored to the vicinity, the wretched woman placed the infant on her lap and looked into his face and wept as if she were to baptize him with tears. And with a hunger weakened voice she spoke to the child saying, "Why have you left the spiritual world and come to share with me the bitterness of earthly life? Why have you deserted the angels and the spacious firmament and come to this miserable land of humans, filled with agony, oppression, and heartlessness? I have nothing to give you except tears; will you be nourished on tears instead of milk? I have no silk clothes to put on you; will my naked, shivering arms give you warmth? The little animals graze in the pasture and return safely to their shed; and the small birds pick the seeds and sleep placidly between the branches. But you, my beloved, have naught save a loving but destitute mother."
Then she took the infant to her withered breast and clasped her arms around him as if wanting to join the two bodies in one, as before. She lifted her burning eyes slowly toward heaven and cried, "God! Have mercy on my unfortunate countrymen!"
At that moment the clouds floated from the face of the moon, whose beams penetrated the transom of that poor home and fell upon two corpses.
Scheme | X X X X X |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01110100111001001101010010011110101110010100100101101111100111101000111111011101101010010010000110101010111101100101011110110011010011000110111001101011111001110010001011001011111000100100100100101010101 01011010110101110101000100100011101100101001010110010100101001001101101101101010010001101010110111011101111010001000110101010001011001011111010010100100101111111010010101011000101 10101010101100100010101010101010111011110101111010101011110110111101000101111101001101111010010001010111100011101110001001111011101111110110111111111111111010011110101001001000110111001110101100010101110111101011010 1110101010101010111110110110011011100101100110011110110100100 111001101011011110001011110101110 |
Characters | 2,785 |
Words | 498 |
Sentences | 21 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 |
Lines Amount | 5 |
Letters per line (avg) | 445 |
Words per line (avg) | 99 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 445 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 99 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:29 min read
- 102 Views
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