On Laws

Then a lawyer said, But what of our

Laws, master?

And he answered:

You delight in laying down laws,

Yet you delight more in breaking them.

Like children playing by the ocean who

build sand-towers with constancy and

then destroy them with laughter.

But while you build your sand-towers the

ocean brings more sand to the shore,

And when you destroy them the ocean

laughs with you.

Verily the ocean laughs always with the

innocent.

But what of those to whom life is not

an ocean, and man-made laws are not

sand-towers,

But to whom life is a rock, and the law

a chisel with which they would carve it

in their own likeness?

What of the cripple who hates dancers?

What of the ox who loves his yoke and

deems the elk and deer of the forest

stray and vagrant things?

What of the old serpent who cannot shed

his skin, and calls all others naked and

shameless?

And of him who comes early to the

wedding-feast, and when over-fed and

tired goes his way saying that all

feasts are violation and all feasters

lawbreakers?

What shall I say of these save that

they too stand in the sunlight, but with

their backs to the sun?

They see only their shadows, and their

shadows are their laws.

And what is the sun to them but a caster

of shadows?

And what is it to acknowledge the

laws but to stoop down and trace their

shadows upon the earth?

But you who walk facing the sun, what

images drawn on the earth can hold

you?

You who travel with the wind, what

weather-vane shall direct your course?

What man’s law shall bind you if you

break your yoke but upon no man’s prison

door?

What laws shall you fear if you dance

but stumble against no man’s iron

chains?

And who is he that shall bring you to

judgment if you tear off your garment

yet leave it in no man’s path?

People of Orphalese, you can muffle the

drum, and you can loosen the strings

of the lyre, but who shall command the

skylark not to sing?