The Prophet
Kahlil Gibran, 1923
Twenty-eight short pieces of prose poetry.
Kahlil Gibran's 1923 book of prose poems: before he sails home, the prophet Almustafa answers the people of Orphalese on love, marriage, children, work, freedom, friendship, time and death.
28 chapters · 12,286 words · about 5 hours at 40 wpm
Start with The Coming of the ShipHow it begins
Almustafa, the chosen and the beloved, who was a dawn unto his own day, had waited twelve years in the city of Orphalese for his ship that was to return and bear him back to the isle of his birth.
And in the twelfth year, on the seventh day of Ielool, the month of reaping, he climbed the hill without the city walls and looked seaward; and he beheld his ship coming with the mist.
Chapters
- 1 The Coming of the Ship ~30 min
- 2 On Love ~12 min
- 3 On Marriage ~5 min
- 4 On Children ~5 min
- 5 On Giving ~13 min
- 6 On Eating and Drinking ~7 min
- 7 On Work ~15 min
- 8 On Joy and Sorrow ~6 min
- 9 On Houses ~12 min
- 10 On Clothes ~5 min
- 11 On Buying and Selling ~7 min
- 12 On Crime and Punishment ~19 min
- 13 On Laws ~9 min
- 14 On Freedom ~11 min
- 15 On Reason and Passion ~8 min
- 16 On Pain ~5 min
- 17 On Self-Knowledge ~5 min
- 18 On Teaching ~5 min
- 19 On Friendship ~7 min
- 20 On Talking ~6 min
- 21 On Time ~5 min
- 22 On Good and Evil ~11 min
- 23 On Prayer ~9 min
- 24 On Pleasure ~13 min
- 25 On Beauty ~10 min
- 26 On Religion ~8 min
- 27 On Death ~7 min
- 28 The Farewell ~55 min
Text: Project Gutenberg #58585. In the public domain.