Oh heart, if one should say to you that the soul perishes like the body, answer that the flower withers, but the seed remains.

The speaker addresses the “heart” as an inner confidant, anticipating a skeptical claim that the soul dies as the body does. The reply offers a natural metaphor: a flower’s visible life ends, yet its seed persists and carries the principle of renewal. In this framing, bodily death is likened to withering—an outward cessation—while the soul is imagined as an enduring essence capable of continuation or rebirth. The line reflects Gibran’s characteristic fusion of lyrical spirituality and nature imagery, using a simple botanical cycle to argue for permanence beyond physical decay and to console against materialist finality.