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 mys...