HOW I BECAME A MADMANKAHLIL GIBRAN : THE MADMAN [1918]

You ask me how I became a madman
It happened thus:
One day, long before many gods were born,
I woke from a deep sleep and
found all my masks were stolen

The seven masks
I have fashioned and worn in seven lives
I ran maskless through the crowded streets shouting,
"Thieves, thieves, the cursed thieves."

Men and women laughed at me
and some ran to their houses in fear of me.
And when I reached the market place,
a youth standing on a house
top cried, "He is a madman".
I looked up to behold him;
the sun kissed my own naked face for the first time.

For the first time the sun kissed my own naked face
and my soul was inflamed with love for the sun,
and I wanted my masks no more.
And as if in a trance I cried,
"Blessed, blessed are the thieves who stole my masks."
Thus I became a madman
And I have found both freedom
and safety in my madness;
the freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us

But let me not be too proud of my safety
Even a Thief in a jail is safe from another thief