Night ~ Kahlil Gibran

O NIGHT, ABIDING - PLACE of poets and of lovers and of
singers,
O Night, where shadows dwell with spirits and with visions,
O Night, enfolder of our longing, our desire, our memory,
Vast giant standing betwixt the dwarfed evening clouds and
the brides of dawn,
Girt with the sword of awe, crowned with the moon, and
garmented with silence;
Who gazes with a thousand eyes into the depths of life,
And listens with a thousand ears to the sighs of desolation and
of death!

It is your darkness that reveals to us the light of heaven,
For the light of day has enshrouded us with the darkness of
earth.
It is your promise that opens our eyes to eternity,
For the vanity of day had held us like blind men in the world
of time and space.
It is your your tranquil silence that unveils the secret of ever
wakeful, ever restless spirits;
For day is a turbulent clamour wherein souls lie beneath the
sharp hooves of ambition and desire.
O Night, you are a shepherd who gathers unto the fold of
sleep the dreams of the weak and the hopes of the strong.
You are a seer who closes with his mystic fingers the eyelids of
the wretched and lifts their hearts to a world more kindly
than this world.
In the folds of your grey garments lovers have found their
bower,
And upon your feet, wet with the dew of heaven, have the
lonely- hearted wept their tears;
In the palms of your hands, fragrant with the scent of field and
vineyard, strangers have laid down their longing and despair;
To lovers you are a friend; to the lonely, a comforter; to the
desolate, a host.
In your deep shade the poet's fancies stir; on your bosom the
prophetic heart awakes; upon your brow imagination
writes.
For to the poet you are a sovereign, to the prophet a vision,
and to the thinker an intimate.

When my soul became weary of man, and my eyes were tired
of gazing upon the face of the day,
I sought the distant fields where the shadows of bygone ages
sleep.
There I stood before the dark and silent being moving with a
thousand feet over the mountain, and over the valley and
the plain.
There I gazed into the eyes of darkness and listened to the
murmuring of invisible wings.
There I felt the touch of formless garmets and was shaken by
the terrors of the unseen.

There I saw you, Night, tragic and beautiful and awesome,
Standing between the heaven and the earth, with clouds for
your garments, girdled with fog.
Laughing at the light of the sun and mocking the supremacy
of the day,
Deriding the multitude of slaves who kneel sleepless before
their idols, and contemptous of kings who lie asleep and
dreaming in their beds of silk;
There I behold you gazing into the eyes of thieves, and
I beheld you keeping guard above the babe in slumber;
I saw you weeping before the smiles of prostitues, and smiling
at the tears of lovers,
And lifting with your right hand the great-hearted, and with
your feet trampling the mean-spirited.

There I saw you , Night, and you saw me;
You, in your awful beauty, were to me a father, and I, in my
dreams , was a son;
For the curtains of being were drawn away, and the veil of
doubt was rent;
You revealed your secret purpose unto me, and I told you all
my hopes and my desires.
Then was your majesty turned into melody more beautiful
than the gentle whisper of flowers,
And my fears were transfrmed into trust more than the trust
of birds;
And you lifted me and placed me on your shoulders,
And you taught my eyes to see, my ears to hear, my lips to
speak, and my heart to love;
With your magic fingers you touched my thought,
And my thought poured forth like a flowing, singing stream
bearing away all that was withered grass.
And with your lips you kissed my spirit, and it kindled into
flames
Devouring every dead and dying thing.

I followed you, O Night, until I became like unto you;
I went as your companion untill your desires became mine;
I loved you until my whole being was indeed a lesser image of
your own.
For within my dark self are glowing stars which passion
scatters at evening and doubt gathers at dawn;
And within my heart is a moon that struggles, now with
thick clouds, and now with a procession of dreams that
fills all space.
Now within my awakened soul dwells a peace that reveals the
lover's secret and the worshipper's prayer;
And upon my head rests a vei lof mystery which the agony of
death may rend, but the songs of youth shall weave again.

I am like you, O Night, and men shall deem me boastful,
Do they not boast of their resmeblance to the day?
I am like you, and like you I am accused of much I am not.
I am like you with all my dreams and all my hopes and being.
I am like you, even though dusk does not crown me with its
golden fleece.
I am like you, though morn does not adorn my trailing
raiment withh pearl and rose.
I am like you, though I am not yet belted with the milky way.
I too am a night, vast and calm, yet fettered and rebellious.
There is no beginning to my darkness and no end to my
depths.
When the souls of the departed rise to pride themselves upon
the light of joy,
My night soul shall decend glorified by darkness of its
sorrow.
I am like you, O Night, and when my dawn comes, then also
shall come my end.