The Broken Wings
4.5/5
()
About this ebook
Selma Karamy was the one who taught me to worship beauty by the example of her own beauty and revealed to me the secret of love by her affection; se was the one who first sang to me the poetry of real life.
Kahlil Gibran
Khalil Gibran (1883–1931) was an essayist, novelist, and mystic poet. He wrote The Prophet, a collection of philosophical essays that went on to become one of the bestselling books of the twentieth century. Though he was born in Lebanon, he moved to Boston’s South End as a child and studied art with Auguste Rodin in Paris for two years before launching his literary career. Much of Gibran’s work contains themes of religion and Christianity as well as spiritual love.
Read more from Kahlil Gibran
25+ Self-Help Classics Collection: Think and Grow Rich, The Richest Man in Babylon, The Art of War, As a Man Thinketh, The Meditations, Orthodoxy, A Confession and others Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Third Treasury of Kahlil Gibran Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Kahlil Gibran's Little Book of Secrets Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Prosperity & Wealth Bible Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Prosperity Bible Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Jesus the Son of Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Between Night and Morn Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Jesus the Son of Man Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Second Treasury of Kahlil Gibran Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Treasured Writings of Kahlil Gibran Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5THE BROKEN WINGS (With Original Illustrations): Poetic Romance Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Spirits Rebellious Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mirrors of the Soul Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Tears and Laughter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sand and Foam Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Collected Works of Kahlil Gibran (Deluxe Hardbound Edition) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Secrets of the Heart Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Kahlil Gibran's Little Book of Love Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Prosperity Bible: The Greatest Writings of All Time on the Secrets to Wealth and Prosperity Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Treasury of Kahlil Gibran Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Secret of Prosperity: The Greatest Writings on the Art of Becoming Rich, Strong & Successful Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Procession Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Prophet: Bilingual Spanish and English Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to The Broken Wings
Related ebooks
THE BROKEN WINGS (With Original Illustrations): Poetic Romance Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tagore, The Poetry Of Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Second Treasury of Kahlil Gibran Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Tear and a Smile Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Broken Wings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5First Love Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Letters to a Young Poet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5White Nights and Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pride and Prejudice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Picture of Dorian Gray Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Letters to a Young Poet: Translated, with an Introduction and Commentary, by Reginald Snell Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Prophet Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Madman: His Parables and Poems Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Stray Birds Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Secrets of the Heart Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Death of Ivan Ilych Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Metamorphosis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Treasured Writings of Kahlil Gibran Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy (Illustrated) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Kahlil Gibran's Little Book of Love Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Treasury of Kahlil Gibran Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Metamorphosis: New Revised Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFrankenstein Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ward No. 6 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSongs of Innocence and of Experience Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Prophet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leaves of Grass Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Icarus Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Romance For You
Hopeless Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heart Bones: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It Starts with Us: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5November 9: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ugly Love: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Before We Were Strangers: A Love Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Confess: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Without Merit: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All Your Perfects: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Favorite Half-Night Stand Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stone Heart Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maybe Not: A Novella Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Buzz Books 2023: Spring/Summer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maybe Now: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finding Perfect: A Novella Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dating You / Hating You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Songs of Love and Death: All-Original Tales of Star-Crossed Love Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Swear on This Life: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chased by Moonlight Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rosie Effect: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Seven Sisters: Book One Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wuthering Heights Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Under the Roses Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Messy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Roomies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Broken Wings
8 ratings1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5the author writes with beauty and elegance. Highly recommend this story if you don’t mind pain and tearing up
Book preview
The Broken Wings - Kahlil Gibran
Rescuer
Foreword
I was eighteen years of age when love opened my eyes with its magic rays and touched my spirit for the first time with its fiery fingers, and Selma Karamy was the first woman who awakened my spirit with her beauty and led me into the garden of high affection, where days pass like dreams and nights like weddings.
Selma Karamy was the one who taught me to worship beauty by the example of her own beauty and revealed to me the secret of love by her affection; se was the one who first sang to me the poetry of real life.
Every young man remembers his first love and tries to recapture that strange hour, the memory of which changes his deepest feeling and makes him so happy in spite of all the bitterness of its mystery.
In every young man's life there is a Selma
who appears to him suddenly while in the spring of life and transforms his solitude into happy moments and fills the silence of his nights with music.
I was deeply engrossed in thought and contemplation and seeking to understand the meaning of nature and the revelation of books and scriptures when I heard LOVE whispered into my ears through Selma's lips. My life was a coma, empty like that of Adam's in Paradise, when I saw Selma standing before me like a column of light. She was the Eve of my heart who filled it with secrets and wonders and made me understand the meaning of life.
The first Eve led Adam out of Paradise by her own will, while Selma made me enter willingly into the paradise of pure love and virtue by her sweetness and love; but what happened to the first man also happened to me, and the fiery word which chased Adam out of Paradise was like the one which frightened me by its glittering edge and forced me away from paradise of my love without having disobeyed any order or tasted the fruit of the forbidden tree.
Today, after many years have passed, I have nothing left out of that beautiful dream except painful memories flapping like invisible wings around me, filling the depths of my heart with sorrow, and bringing tears to my eyes; and my beloved, beautiful Selma, is dead and nothing is left to commemorate her except my broken heart and tomb surrounded by cypress trees. That tomb and this heart are all that is left to bear witness of Selma.
The silence that guards the tomb does not reveal God's secret in the obscurity of the coffin, and the rustling of the branches whose roots suck the body's elements do not tell the mysteries of the grave, by the agonized sighs of my heart announce to the living the drama which love, beauty, and death have performed.
Oh, friends of my youth who are scattered in the city of Beirut, when you pass by the cemetery near the pine forest, enter it silently and walk slowly so the tramping of your feet will not disturb the slumber of the dead, and stop humbly by Selma's tomb and greet the earth that encloses her corpse and mention my name with deep sigh and say to yourself, here, all the hopes of Gibran, who is living as prisoner of love beyond the seas, were buried. On this spot he lost his happiness, drained his tears, and forgot his smile.
By that tomb grows Gibran's sorrow together with the cypress trees, and above the tomb his spirit flickers every night commemorating Selma, joining the branches of the trees in sorrowful wailing, mourning and lamenting the going of Selma, who, yesterday was a beautiful tune on the lips of life and today is a silent secret in the bosom of the earth.
Oh, comrades of my youth! I appeal to you in the names of those virgins whom your hearts have loved, to lay a wreath of flowers on the forsaken tomb of my beloved, for the flowers you lay on Selma's tomb are like falling drops of dew for the eyes of dawn on the leaves of withering rose.
Silent Sorrow
My neighbours, you remember the dawn of youth with pleasure and regret its passing; but I remember it like a prisoner who recalls the bars and shackles of his jail. You speak of those years between infancy and youth as a golden era free from confinement and cares, but I call those years an era of silent sorrow which dropped as a seed into my heart and grew with it and could find no outlet to the world of Knowledge and wisdom until love came and opened the heart's doors and lighted its corners. Love provided me with a tongue and tears. You people remember the gardens and orchids and the meeting places and street corners that witnessed your games and heard your innocent whispering; and I remember, too, the beautiful spot in North Lebanon. Every time I close my eyes I see those valleys full of magic and dignity and those mountains covered with glory and greatness trying to reach the sky. Every time I shut my ears to the clamour of the city I hear the murmur of the rivulets and the rustling of the branches. All those beauties which I speak of now and which I long to see, as a child longs for his mother's breast, wounded my spirit, imprisoned in the darkness of youth, as a falcon suffers in its cage when it sees a flock of birds flying freely in the spacious sky. Those valleys and hills fired my imagination, but bitter thoughts wove round my heart a net of hopelessness.
Every time I went to the fields I returned disappointed, without understanding the cause of my disappointment. Every time I looked at the grey sky I felt my heart contract. Every time I heard the singing of the birds and babbling of the spring I suffered without understanding the reason for my suffering. It is said