O My Heart

You are alone, O heart, and you will remain alone forever;
You will sing, but you will melt away even as you sing!
Your blood will burn, and part of you will weep over part!
And your tormented strings, O heart, will bend one over another with a touching tenderness that draws forth tears...
Yes, O heart, you will fold in upon your very self, and you will have no friend but this pen, which will express your solitude with an expression of genius — burst forth by unbroken pains, watered by scalding tears, and kindled by burning sighs.
God keep you, poor thing, for they have embittered even your right to solitude!
They have envied you even your misery!
They want you to give up the one thing without which you find no savor in life — the light you can do without food and water and air, but cannot do without!
Yes, they want you to forsake literature, O heart!
And what is your life worth, poor thing, if it is empty of it?
Nay, what is the bliss of life and death, of this world and the next, if you forsake the paradise of your spirit, the life of your life, the desire of your days?
But what are these wishes of theirs worth, O heart?
What the hand of God plants, the hands of men have no power to crush,
And what heaven creates, earth cannot destroy;
So you can do without them, for the springs of your inspiration gush from divine wells —
They are of the streams of eternity, O heart, so what need have you of these people?
Gently, O people! A suffering, sincere heart overcomes you all...
You willed one thing, and God willed another;
You gave me cups of pain to drink, and I poured them out as sincere art that gladdened my heart and filled me with loftiness and forgiveness!
Sing, then, O heart: for this spirit will not be stilled, and this resolve will not tire,
Because your coursing ray will scatter all these earthly lights;
God is your helper, nature your solace, your pains your confidant, your art your life — and you are free!
How happy you are, how blessed!
But you are alone, and you will remain alone forever!..

(Ramle — Palestine)