Le Prophète

★★★★★ _“His power came from some great

reservoir of spiritual life

else it could not have

so universal and so potent,

but the majesty and

beauty of the language

with which he clothed it

were all his own”

― Claude Bragdon_

This ebook is a slim volume of aphorisms and parables written in biblical

cadence somewhere between poetry and prose (First published 1918).

**☛ This is a new edition for kindle with active table of contents, drop caps

and original drawings by the author.**

Grab the free preview or "look inside" and give it a try.

**Table of contents**

How I Became A Madman

God

My Friend

The Scarecrow

The Sleep Walkers

The Wise Dog

The Two Hermits

On Giving And Taking

The Seven Selves

War

The Fox

The Wise King

Ambition

The New Pleasure

The Other Language

The Pomegranate

The Two Cages

The Three Ants

The Grave-Digger

On The Strips Of The Temple

The Blessed City

The Good God and the Evil God

"Defeat"

Night And The Madman

Faces

The Greater Sea

Crucified

The Astronomer

The Great Longing

Said a Blade of Grass

The Eye

The Two Learned Men

When My Sorrow Was Born

And When My Joy Was Born

"The Perfect World"

☛ Incipit

You ask me how I became a madman. It happened thus: One day, long before many

gods were born, I woke from a deep sleep and found all my masks were

stolen,—the seven masks I have fashioned and worn in seven lives,—I ran

maskless through the crowded streets shouting, “Thieves, thieves, the cursed

thieves.”

Men and women laughed at me and some ran to their houses in fear of me.

And when I reached the market place, a youth standing on a house-top cried,

“He is a madman.” I looked up to behold him; the sun kissed my own naked face

for the first time. For the first time the sun kissed my own naked face and my

soul was inflamed with love for the sun, and I wanted my masks no more. And as

if in a trance I cried, “Blessed, blessed are the thieves who stole my masks.”

Thus I became a madman.

And I have found both freedom of loneliness and the safety from being

understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us.

But let me not be too proud of my safety. Even a Thief in a jail is safe from

another thief.

☛ Biography

1883-KAHLIL GIBRAN-1931

Poet, philosopher, and artist, was born in Lebanon, a land that has produced

many prophets. The millions of Arabic-speaking peoples familiar with his

writings in that language consider him the genius of his age. But he was a man

whose fame and influence spread far beyond the Near East. His poetry has been

translated into more than twenty languages. His drawings and paintings have

been exhibited in the great capitals of the world and compared by Auguste

Rodin to the work of William Blake. In the United States, which he made his

home during the last twenty years of his life, he began to write in English.

The Prophet and his other books of poetry, illustrated with his mystical

drawings, are known and loved by innumerable Americans who find in them an

expression of the, deepest impulses of man's heart and mind.

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