The Lonely Poet, Khalil Gibran
I am a stranger in this world, and there is a severe solitude and painful lonesomeness in my exile. I am alone, but in my aloneness I contemplate an unknown and enchanting country, and this meditation fills my dreams with the spectres of a great and distant land which my eyes have never seen.
I am a stranger among my people and I have no friends. When I see a person I say within myself, âWho is he, and in what manner do I know him, and why is he here; and what law has joined me with him?â
I am a stranger to myself, and when I hear my tongue speak, my ears wonder over my voice; I see my inner self smiling, crying, braving, and fearing; and my existence wanders over my substance while my soul interrogates my heart; but I remain unknown, engulfed by tremendous silence.
My thoughts are strangers to my body, and as I stand before the mirror, I see something in my face which my soul does not see, and I find in my eyes what my inner self does not find.
When I walk vacant-eyed through the streets of the clamorous city, the children follow me, shouting âHere is a blind man! Let us give him a walking cane to feel his way.â When I run from them, I meet with a group of maidens, and they grasp the edges of my garment, saying, âHe is deaf like the rock; let us fill his ears with the music of love.â And when I flee from them, a throng of aged people point at me with trembling fingers and say, âHe is a madman who lost his mind in the world of genii and ghouls.â
 I am a stranger in this world; I roamed the Universe from end to end, but could not find a place to rest my head; nor did I know any human I confronted, neither an individual who would hearken to my mind.
When I open my sleepless eyes at dawn, I find myself imprisoned in a dark cave from whose ceiling hang the insects and upon whose floor crawl the vipers.
When I go out to meet the light, the shadow of the body follows me, but the shadow of my spirit precedes me and leads the way to an unknown place seeking things beyond my understanding; and grasping objects that are meaningless to me.
At eventide I return and lie upon my bed, made of soft feathers and lined with thorns, and I contemplate and feel the troublesome and happy desires, and sense the painful and joyous hopes.
At midnight the ghosts of the past ages and the spirits of the forgotten civilization enter through the crevices of the cave to visit me⊠I stare at them and they gaze upon me; I talk to them and they answer me smilingly. Then I endeavor to clutch them, but they sift through my fingers and vanish like the mist which sits on the lake.
 I am a stranger in this world, and there is no one in the Universe who understands the language I speak. Patterns of bizarre remembrance form suddenly in my mind, and my eyes bring forth queer images and sad ghosts. I walk in the deserted prairies, watching the streamlets running fast, up and up from the depths of the valley to the top of the mountain; I watch the naked trees blooming and bearing fruit, and shedding their leaves in one instant, and then I see the branches fall and turn into speckled snakes. I see the birds hovering above, singing and wailing; then they stop and open their wings and turn into undraped maidens with long hair, looking at me from behind kohled and infatuated eyes, and smiling at me with full lips soaked with honey, stretching their scented hands towards me. Then they ascend and disappear from my sight like phantoms, leaving in the firmament the resounding echo of their taunts and mocking laughter.
I am a stranger in this world⊠I am a poet who composes what life proses, and who proses what life composes.
For this reason I am a stranger, and I shall remain a stranger until the white and friendly wings of Death carry me home into my beautiful country. There, where light and peace and understanding abide, I will await the other strangers who will be rescued by the friendly trap of time from this narrow, dark world.











