Night and the Madman

N

Kahlil Gibran

“I am like thee, O, night, dark and naked; I walk on the flaming
path which is above my day-dreams, and whenever my foot touches
earth a giant oak tree comes forth.”

“Nay, thou art not like me, O, Madman, for thou still lookest
backward to see how large a foot-print thou leavest on the sand.”

“I am like thee, O, Night, silent and deep; and in the heart of
my loneliness lies a Goddess in child-bed; and in him who is being
born heaven touches Hell.”

“Nay, thou art not like me, O, Madman, for thou shudderest yet
before pain, and the song of the abyss terrifies thee.”

“I am like thee, O, Night, wild and terrible; for my ears are crowded
with cries of conquered nations and sighs for forgotten lands.”

“Nay, thou art not like me, O, Madman, for thou still takest thy
little-self for a comrade, and with thy monster-self thou canst
not be friend.”

“I am like thee, O, Night, cruel and awful; for my bosom is lit
by burning ships at sea, and my lips are wet with blood of slain
warriors.”

“Nay, thou art not like me, O, Madman; for the desire for a
sister-spirit is yet upon thee, and thou has not become alone unto
thyself.”

“I am like thee, O, Night, joyous and glad; for he who dwells in
my shadow is now drunk with virgin wine, and she who follows me is
sinning mirthfully.”

“Nay, thou art not like me, O, Madman, for thy soul is wrapped in
the veil of seven folds and thou holdest not thy heart in thine
hand.”

“I am like thee, O, Night, patient and passionate; for in my breast
a thousand dead lovers are buried in shrouds of withered kisses.”

“Yea, Madman, art thou like me? Art thou like me? And canst thou
ride the tempest as a steed, and grasp the lightning as a sword?”

“Like thee, O, Night, like thee, mighty and high, and my throne is
built upon heaps of fallen Gods; and before me too pass the days
to kiss the hem of my garment but never to gaze at my face.”

“Art thou like me, child of my darkest heart? And dost thou think
my untamed thoughts and speak my vast language?”

“Yea, we are twin brothers, O, Night; for thou revealest space and
I reveal my soul.”

681

Rating:

Comment form:

Similar Poems:

Sonnet 104: To me, fair friend, you never can be old by William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold
Have from the forests shook three summers’ pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.
Ah, yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand,
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived;
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived:
For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred:
Ere you were born was beauty’s summer dead.

848

Rating:

The Song of Wandering Aengus by William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair

2.1K

Rating:

Chinese Whispers by John Ashbery

John Ashbery

And in a little while we broke under the strain:
suppurations ad nauseam, the wanting to be taller,
though it‘s simply about being mysterious, i.e., not taller,
like any tree in any forest.
Mute, the pancake describes you.
It had tiny roman numerals embedded in its rim.
It was a pancake clock. They had ’em in those days,
always getting smaller, which is why they finally became extinct.

941

Rating:

from “An Attempt at Jealousy” by Marina Tsvetaeva

Marina Tsvetaeva

How is your life with that other one?
Simpler, is it? A stroke of the oars
and a long coastline—
and the memory of me

is soon a drifting island
(not in the ocean—in the sky!)
Souls—you will be sisters—
sisters, not lovers.

687

Rating:

Lines to Mr. Hodgson Written on Board the Lisbon Packet by Lord Byron (George Gordon)

Lord Byron (George Gordon)

Huzza! Hodgson, we are going,
Our embargo's off at last;
Favourable breezes blowing
Bend the canvass o'er the mast.
From aloft the signal's streaming,
Hark! the farewell gun is fir'd;
Women screeching, tars blaspheming,
Tell us that our time's expir'd.

820

Rating:

God Bless America by John Fuller

John Fuller

When they confess that they have lost the penial bone and outer space is
Once again a numinous void, when they’re kept out of Other Places,
And Dr Fieser falls asleep at last and dreams of unburnt faces,
When gold medals are won by the ton for forgetting about the different races, God Bless America.

When in the Latin shanties the scented priesthood suffers metempsychosis
And with an organ entry tutti copula the dollar uncrosses

723

Rating:

Willow by Anna Akhmatova

Anna Akhmatova

...and a decrepit handful of trees.
—Aleksandr Pushkin

And I matured in peace born of command,
in the nursery of the infant century,
and the voice of man was never dear to me,
but the breeze’s voice—that I could understand.
The burdock and the nettle I preferred,
but best of all the silver willow tree.
Its weeping limbs fanned my unrest with dreams;
it lived here all my life, obligingly.
I have outlived it now, and with surprise.
There stands the stump; with foreign voices other
willows converse, beneath our, beneath those skies,
and I am hushed, as if I’d lost a brother.

1.8K

Rating:

A Lady Dressed By Youth by Duchess of Newcastle Margaret Cavendish

Duchess of Newcastle Margaret Cavendish

Her hair was curls of Pleasure and Delight,
Which on her brow did cast a glistening light.
As lace her bashful eyelids downward hung:
A modest countenance o'er her face was flung:
Blushes, as coral beads, she strung to wear
About her neck, and pendants for each ear:
Her gown was by Proportion cut and made,
With veins embroidered, with complexion laid,
Rich jewels of pure honor she did wear,
By noble actions brightened everywhere:
Thus dressed, to Fame's great court straightways she went,
To dance a brawl with Youth, Love, Mirth, Content.

718

Rating:

The Solitary Land by Adonis

Adonis

I inhabit these fugitive words,
I live, my face my face’s lone companion,
And my face is my path,

In your name, my land
That stands tall, enchanted and solitary;
In your name, death, my friend.

806

Rating:

The Garden of Proserpine by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Here, where the world is quiet;
Here, where all trouble seems
Dead winds' and spent waves' riot
In doubtful dreams of dreams;
I watch the green field growing
For reaping folk and sowing,
For harvest-time and mowing,
A sleepy world of streams.

I am tired of tears and laughter,
And men that laugh and weep;
Of what may come hereafter
For men that sow to reap:
I am weary of days and hours,
Blown buds of barren flowers,

1.2K

Rating:

The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

1.3K

Rating:

from Don Juan: Canto 1, Stanzas 41-42 by Lord Byron (George Gordon)

Lord Byron (George Gordon)

41
His classic studies made a little puzzle,
Because of filthy loves of gods and goddesses,
Who in the earlier ages raised a bustle,
But never put on pantaloons or bodices;
His reverend tutors had at times a tussle,
And for their Aeneids, Iliads, and Odysseys,
Were forced to make an odd sort of apology,
For Donna Inez dreaded the mythology.

42
Ovid's a rake, as half his verses show him,
Anacreon's morals are a still worse sample,

640

Rating:

Fawn by Mary Barnard

Mary Barnard

Out of a high meadow where flowers
bloom above cloud, come down;
pursue me with reasons for smiling without malice.

Bring mimic pride like that of the seedling fir,
surprise in the perfect leg-stems
and queries unstirred by recognition or fear
pooled in the deep eyes.

Come down by regions where rocks

803

Rating:

To - by Sarah Helen Whitman

Sarah Helen Whitman

Vainly my heart had with thy sorceries striven:
It had no refuge from thy love,—no Heaven
But in thy fatal presence;—from afar
It owned thy power and trembled like a star
O’erfraught with light and splendor. Could I deem
How dark a shadow should obscure its beam?—
Could I believe that pain could ever dwell
Where thy bright presence cast its blissful spell?

1.0K

Rating:

"How can I keep my maidenhead" by Robert Burns

Robert Burns

How can I keep my maidenhead,
My maidenhead, my maidenhead;
How can I keep my maidenhead,
Among sae mony men, O.

The Captain bad a guinea for’t,
A guinea for’t, a guinea for’t,
The Captain bad a guinea for’t,
The Colonel he bad ten, O.

But I’ll do as my minnie did,
My minnie did, my minnie did,
But I’ll do as my minnie did,
For siller I’ll hae nane, O.

820

Rating:

from Hero and Leander: "It lies not in our power to love or hate" by Christopher Marlowe

Christopher Marlowe

It lies not in our power to love or hate,
For will in us is overruled by fate.
When two are stripped, long ere the course begin,
We wish that one should lose, the other win;
And one especially do we affect
Of two gold ingots, like in each respect:
The reason no man knows; let it suffice
What we behold is censured by our eyes.
Where both deliberate, the love is slight:
Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?

911

Rating:

Love and Death by Lord Byron (George Gordon)

Lord Byron (George Gordon)

1.

I watched thee when the foe was at our side,
Ready to strike at him—or thee and me,
Were safety hopeless—rather than divide
Aught with one loved save love and liberty.

957

Rating:

A Valediction of the Book by John Donne

John Donne

I’ll tell thee now (dear Love) what thou shalt do
To anger destiny, as she doth us,
How I shall stay, though she esloygne me thus
And how posterity shall know it too;
How thine may out-endure
Sybil’s glory, and obscure
Her who from Pindar could allure,
And her, through whose help Lucan is not lame,
And her, whose book (they say) Homer did find, and name.

Study our manuscripts, those myriads
Of letters, which have past twixt thee and me,
Thence write our annals, and in them will be
To all whom love’s subliming fire invades,
Rule and example found;

930

Rating:

My goldfinch, I'll toss back my head— by Osip Mandelstam

Osip Mandelstam

My goldfinch, I'll toss back my head—
let's look at the world, you and I:
a wintry day, prickly as stubble,
is it just as rough on your eye?

Tail like a boat, black and gold plumage,
dipped in paint from the beak down—
are you aware, my little goldfinch,
what a goldfinch dandy you are?

694

Rating:

Temporarily in Oxford by Anne Stevenson

Anne Stevenson

Where they will bury me
I don't know.
Many places might not be
sorry to store me.

The Midwest has right of origin.
Already it has welcomed my mother
to its flat sheets.

The English fens that bore me

896

Rating: