But let there be spaces in your togetherness, and let…

The line comes from the chapter of The Prophet on marriage. Almitra, the seeress who first asked Almustafa to speak of love, asks again: “And what of Marriage, master?” He begins by binding the couple together for ever, “even in the silent memory of God”, then adds: “But let there be spaces in your togetherness.” What follows is a chain of images in the same spirit: love should be “a moving sea between the shores of your souls”; fill each other’s cup “but drink not from one cup”; sing and dance together, “but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music”. The pillars of the temple stand apart, and the oak and the cypress “grow not in each other’s shadow”.

Gibran published The Prophet in New York in 1923; its twenty-six short sermons are framed by Almustafa’s farewell to the city of Orphalese.

The passage has become one of the most popular readings at weddings, a plea for a love that unites without absorbing.

The Prophet, “On Marriage”, 1923

Checked word for word in the work itself.

Read the passage in the work