On Pleasure

Then a hermit, who visited the city once

a year, came forth and said, Speak to us of

Pleasure.

    And he answered, saying:

    Pleasure is a freedom-song,

    But it is not freedom.

    It is the blossoming of your desires,

    But it is not their fruit.

    It is a depth calling unto a height,

    But it is not the deep nor the high.

    It is the caged taking wing,

    But it is not space encompassed.

    Ay, in very truth, pleasure is a freedom-

song.

    And I fain would have you sing it with

fullness of heart; yet I would not have you

lose your hearts in the singing.

 

    Some of your youth seek pleasure as if it

were all, and they are judged and rebuked.

    I would not judge nor rebuke them. I

would have them seek.

    For they shall find pleasure, but not her

alone;

    Seven are her sisters, and the least of them

is more beautiful than pleasure.

    Have you not heard of the man who was

digging in the earth for roots and found a

treasure?

 

    And some of your elders remember

pleasures with regret like wrongs com-

mitted in drunkenness.

    But regret is the beclouding of the mind

 and not its chastisement.

    They should remember their pleasures with

gratitude, as they would the harvest of a

summer.

    Yet if it comforts them to regret, let them

be comforted.

 

    And there are among you those who are

neither young to seek nor old to remember;

    And in their fear of seeking and remem-

bering they shun all pleasures, lest they

neglect the spirit or offend against it.

    But even in their foregoing is their

pleasure.

    And thus they too find a treasure though

they dig for roots with quivering hands.

    But tell me, who is he that can offend the

spirit?

    Shall the nightingale offend the stillness of

the night, or the firefly the stars?

    And shall your flame or your smoke

burden the wind?

    Think you the spirit is a still pool which

you can trouble with a staff?

 

    Oftentimes in denying yourself pleasure

you do but store the desire in the recesses

of your being.

    Who knows but that which seems omitted

today, waits for tomorrow?

    Even your body knows its heritage and

its rightful need and will not be deceived.

    And your body is the harp of your soul,

    And it is yours to bring forth sweet

music from it or confused sounds.

 

     And now you ask in your heart, “How

shall we distinguish that which is good in

pleasure from that which is not good?”

     Go to your fields and your gardens, and

you shall learn that it is the pleasure of

the bee to gather honey of the flower,

     But it is also the pleasure of the flower

to yield its honey to the bee.

     For to the bee a flower is a fountain of

life,

     And to the flower a bee is a messenger of

love,

     And to both, bee and flower, the giving

and the receiving of pleasure is a need and

an ecstasy.

 

     People of Orphalese, be in your pleas-

ures like the flowers and the bees.