Pity the Nation

According to the New Yorker, after William Shakespeare and Laozi, Khalil Gibran is the third best-selling poet in history. Who is Khalil Gibran?

Khalil Gibran was born in Lebanon and was a Maronite Christian. He lived in the United States for much of his life. His most notable work was The Prophet, a book of poetry. Most of his art focused on Christianity. Not only was he a writer but he was also a painter, sculptor, philosopher and theologian. Khalil Gibran died at the age of 48 in New York City on April 10, 1931. One of his best known works is the poem below.

Pity the Nation

Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion.

Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave, eats a bread it does not harvest, and drinks a wine that flows not from its own wine-press.

Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero, and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful.

Pity the nation that despises a passion in its dream, yet submits in its awakening.

Pity the nation that raises not its voice save when it walks in a funeral, boasts not except among its ruins, and will rebel not save when its neck is laid between the sword and the block.

Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking.

Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpetings, and farewells him with hootings, only to welcome another with trumpetings again.

Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years and whose strong men are yet in the cradle.

Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation.

-Khalil Gibran, The Garden of the Prophet (1934)