Upon The Sand...

Said one man to another, "At the high tide of the sea,long ago, with the point of my staff I wrote a line upon the sand; and the people still pause to read it, and they are careful that naught shall erase it."

And the other man said,"And i too wrote a line upon the sand, but it was at low tide, and the waves of the vast sea washed it away. But tell me, what did you write?"

And the first man answered and said, "I wrote this, 'I am He Who is.' But what did you write?"

And the other man said,"This I wrote: 'I am but a drop of this great ocean.' "

-Khalil Gibran.

Beauty and Ugliness....

Upon a day Beauty and Ugliness met on the shore of a sea.And they said to one another,"Let us bathe in the sea."

Then they disrobed and swam in the waters.And after a while Ugliness came back to shore and garmented himself with the garments of Beauty and walked his way.

And Beauty too came out of the sea,and found not her raiment,and she was too shy to be naked,therfore she dressed herself with the raiment of Ugliness.And Beauty walked her way.
And to this very day men and women mistake the one for the other.

Yet some there are who have beheld the face of Beauty,and they know her notwithstanding her garments.And some there be who know the face of Ugliness,and the cloth conceals him not from their eyes.

-Khalil Gibran.