This audio is the reading of the chapter from the book 'The Prophet" by Kahlil Gibran called "On Houses." The mansion asks the prophet to speak about the houses, and the prophet gives an expanding answer.
On houses then amazing came forth and said speak to us of houses and he answered and said build of your imaginings a bower in the wilderness here you build a house within the city walls for even as you have come home in your twilight so has the wanderer in you the ever distant and alone your house is your larger body it grows in the Sun and sleeps in the stillness of the night and it's not dreamless does not your house dream and dreaming leave the city for grow or hilltop what that I could gather your houses into my hand and like a sower scatter them in forest and meadow would the wallies were your streets and the green paths your alleys that you made seek one another through vineyards and come with the fragrance of the earth in your garments but these things are not yet to be in their fear you forefathers gathered you too near together and that fear shall endure a little longer a little longer shall your city walls separate your hearth from your fields and tell me people of our valleys what have you in these houses and what is it you guard with the fastened doors have you peace the quiet urge that reveals your power have your remembrance the glimmering arts that span the summits of the mind have you beauty that leads the heart from things fashioned of wood and stone to the holy mountain tell me have you these in your houses or have you only comfort and the lust for comfort that stills the thing that enters the house a guest and then becomes a host and then a master hey and it becomes a tamer and with hook and scourge makes puppets of your larger desires though its hands are silken its heart is of iron it allows you to sleep only to stand by your bed and jeer at the dignity of the flesh it makes smoke of your sound senses and lays them in the fissile down like fragile vessels verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul and then walks grinning in the funeral but you children of space you restless in rest you shall not be trapped nor tamed your house shall be not an anchor but a mast it shall not be a glintening film that covers a wound but an eyelid that guards the eye you shall not fold your wings that you may pass through doors nor bend your heads that they strike not against the ceiling no fear to breathe lest walls should crack and fall down you shall not dwell in tombs made by the dead for the living and though of magnificence and splendor your house shall not hold your secret nor shelter your longing for that which is boundless in you abides in the mansion of the sky whose door is the morning mist and whose windows are the songs and the silence of night
