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    The Madman: His Parables and Poems
    The Madman: His Parables and Poems
    The Madman: His Parables and Poems
    Ebook53 pages32 minutes

    The Madman: His Parables and Poems

    By Kahlil Gibran

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    About this ebook

    First published in 1918, “The Madman” is the first work in English by celebrated Lebanese-American poet and artist Kahlil Gibran. Most famous for “The Prophet,” published in 1923 and one of the best-selling books ever written, Gibran was also a talented visual artist who studied in Paris before writing several works in Arabic early in his literary career. “The Madman” is a collection of over 30 parables and poems that showcase the innovative and varied style that Gibran would become celebrated for the world over. These sentimental, spiritual, but also witty and humorous, parables and poems examine the foibles and vanities of human culture. They show that often sanity is a social construct and that many who are later viewed as prophets and soothsayers are at first dismissed as crazy madmen. Ultimately life-affirming and reassuring, Gibran’s poems encourage inner contemplation and reflection on what it means to be both a physical and spiritual being. Like all of Gibran’s work, “The Madman” continues to be read and cherished around the world a century after it was first written for its timeless understanding of our shared humanity. This edition includes a biographical afterword.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDigireads.com Publishing
    Release dateSep 24, 2020
    ISBN9781420970050
    Author

    Kahlil Gibran

    Khalil Gibran (1883–1931) was an essayist, novelist, and mystic poet. He wrote The Prophet, a collection of philosophical essays that went on to become one of the bestselling books of the twentieth century. Though he was born in Lebanon, he moved to Boston’s South End as a child and studied art with Auguste Rodin in Paris for two years before launching his literary career. Much of Gibran’s work contains themes of religion and Christianity as well as spiritual love.

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      Book preview

      The Madman - Kahlil Gibran

      cover.jpg

      THE MADMAN

      HIS PARABLES AND POEMS

      By KAHLIL GIBRAN

      The Madman: His Parables and Poems

      By Kahlil Gibran

      Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-7004-3

      eBook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-7005-0

      This edition copyright © 2020. Digireads.com Publishing.

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

      Cover Image: an illustration from the original publication, A. A. Knopf, New York, c. 1918.

      Please visit www.digireads.com

      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 Steps 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

      img1.png

      HOW I BECAME A MADMAN

      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

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