The Earth Gods

“The Earth Gods, the last book to be published while Gibran was still in this world, came into the poet’s hands two weeks before he was to lay aside all earthly volumes. . . . He had a peculiar feeling of tenderness for this book, unlike what he felt for any of the others. ‘Because,’ he said, ‘it was written out of the poet’s hell—a process of childbirth and child-bearing.’ . . .

“It is, in my opinion, one of the greatest poems in the language. The Earth Gods is, perhaps, a book for the mystic, a poet’s book for poets, for the initiate and the dreamer of vast dreams. Yet I have known those who pride themselves on being highly practical and feet-on-the-ground, who disown any bent toward the mystical and the occult, to pronounce it a book of wonder and power. And as a child of seven to whom I read portions of the poem on request, says unvaryingly, ‘Read it again!’ This, perhaps, for the music and the almost unearthly beauty of rhythm.”

—Barbara Young, in This Man From Lebanon: A Study of Kahlil Gibran