Kahlil Gibran - "My Friend" (The Madman)

My friend, I am not what I seem. Seeming is but a garment I wear -- a care-woven garment that protects me from thy questionings and thee from my negligence. The "I" in me, my friend, dwells in the house of silence, and therein it shall remain for ever more, unperceived, unapproachable. I would not have thee believe in what I say nor trust in what I do -- for my words are naught but thy own thoughts in sound and my deeds thy own hopes in action.

When thou sayest, "The wind bloweth eastward," I say, "Aye, it doth blow eastward"; for I would not have thee know that my mind doth not dwell upon the wind but upon the sea. Thou canst not understand my seafaring thoughts, nor would I have thee understand. I would be at sea alone.

When it is day with thee, my friend, it is night with me; yet even then I speak of the noontide that dances upon the hills and of the purple shadow that steals its way across the valley; for thou canst not hear the songs of my darkness nor see my wings beating against the stars -- and I fain would not have thee hear or see. I would be with night alone.

When thou ascendest to thy Heaven I descend to my Hell -- even then thou callest to me across the unbridgeable gulf, "My companion, my comrade," and I call back to thee, "My comrade, my companion" -- for I would not have thee see my Hell. The flame would burn thy eyesight and the smoke would crowd thy nostrils. And I love my Hell too well to have thee visit it. I would be in Hell alone.

Thou lovest Truth and Beauty and Righteousness; and I for thy sake say it is well and seemly to love these things. But in my heart I laugh at thy love. Yet I would not have thee see my laughter. I would laugh alone.

My friend, thou art good and cautious and wise; nay, thou art perfect -- and I, too, speak with thee wisely and cautiously. And yet I am mad. But I mask my madness. I would be mad alone. My friend, thou art not my friend, but how shall I make thee understand? My path is not thy path, yet together we walk, hand in hand.

The Wind

Wind is the loving
Wooer of waters;
Wind blends together
Billows all-foaming।

Spirit of man,
Thou art like unto water!
Fortune of man,
Thou art like unto wind!
- Goethe, 1789

The inner - what is it?
if not intensified sky,hurled through with bird
sand deep with the winds of homecoming।- Rainer Marie Rilke

When we inhale, the air comes into the inner world.
When we exhale, the air goes out to the outer world.
The inner world is limitless, and the outer world is also limitless.
We say "inner world" or "outer world" but actually,
There is just one whole world.- Shunryu Suzuki

“Since I grew tired of the chase And search, I learned to find;

And since the wind blows in my face,I sail with every wind.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

“For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is it to cease breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?” - Kahlil Gibran

“You throw the sand against the wind

And the wind blows it back again.” - William Blake

"In the love of narrow souls I make many short voyages but in vain - I find no sea room - but in great souls I sail before the wind without a watch, and never reach the shore.”

- Henry David Thoreau

A breeze came wandering from the sky, Light as the whispers of a dream; He put the o'erhanging grasses by, And softly stooped to kiss the stream, The pretty stream, the flattered stream, The shy, yet unreluctant stream.
- William Cullen BryantSource: The Wind and Stream

The wind moans, like a long wail from some despairing soul shut out in the awful storm!
- William Hamilton GibsonSource: Pastoral Days--Winter

We all like to congregate at boundary conditions. Where land meets water. Where earth meets air. Where bodies meet mind. Where space meets time. We like to be on one side, and look at the other.

- Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

The wind blows hard among the pinesToward the beginningOf an endless past.Listen: you've heard everything.

- Shinkichi Takahashi, Zen Poems of China and Japan

It's a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds' cries; I never hear the west wind but tears are in my eyes. For it comes from the west lands, the old brown hills, And April's in the West wind, and daffodils.

- John MasefieldSource, The West Wind

Blow, Boreas, foe to human kind!Blow, blustering, freezing, piercing wind!Blow, that thy force I may rehearse,While all my thoughts congeal to verse!

- John Bancks (Banks), To Boreas