Work

                                         
                                                         Work by Ford Madox Brown (1821-1893)

You have been told also that life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.
   And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,
   And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,
   And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,
   And all work is empty save when there is love;
   And when you work with love you blind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.

And what is it to work with love?
   It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.
   It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.
   It is to sow seeds with tenderness and to reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
   It is to change all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,
   And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching.

Often I have heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, 'He who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is nobler than he who ploughs the soil.
   'And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes sandals for our feet.'
   But I say, not in sleep, but in the over-wakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all blades of grass;
   And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song sweeter by his own loving.

Work is love made visible.
   And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
   For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger.
   And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.
   And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you must muffle man's ear to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.
                                                Extract from 'The Prophet' by Kahlil Gibran.