..as a falcon suffers in its cage
when it sees a flock of birds flying freely in the spacious sky
Those valleys and 
hills fired my imagination, but bitter thoughts wove round my heart a net of hopelessness
Every time I went to the fields
I returned disappointed
without understanding the cause of my
disappointment
Every time I looked at the grey sky
I felt my heart contract
Every time I heard the singing of
the birds and babbling of the spring
I suffered without understanding the reason for my suffering
It is said
that unsophistication makes a man empty and that emptiness makes him carefree
It may be true among those
who were born dead and who exist like frozen corpses
but the sensitive boy who feels much and knows little
is the most unfortunate creature under the sun
because he is torn by two forces
the first force elevates him
and shows him the beauty of existence through a cloud of dreams
the second ties him down to the earth
and
fills his eyes with dust and overpowers him with fears and darkness
Solitude has soft  and silky hands,
but with strong fingers it grasps the heart and makes it ache with sorrow
Solitude is the ally of sorrow
as well as a companion of spiritual exaltation
The boy's soul undergoing the buffeting of sorrow is like a white lily just unfolding
It trembles before the
breeze
and opens its heart to day break and folds its leaves back when the shadow of night comes
If that boy
does not have diversion or friends or companions in his games his life will be like a narrow prison
in which he
sees nothing but spider webs and hears nothing but the crawling of insects
That sorrow which obsessed me during my youth
was not caused by lack of amusement
because I could have
had it; neither from lack of friends because I could have found them
That sorrow was caused by an inward
ailment
which made me love solitude
It killed in me the inclination for games and amusement
It removed
from my shoulders the wings of youth and made me like a pond of water
between mountains which reflects
in its calm surface the shadows of ghosts and the colors of clouds and trees
but cannot find an outlet by which
to pass singing to the sea
Thus was my life before I attained the age of eighteen
That year is like a mountain peak in my life
for it awakened knowledge in me and made me understand the vicissitudes of mankind
In that year I was reborn
unless a person is born again his life will remain like a blank sheet in the book of existence
In that year..
I saw the angels of heaven
looking at me through the eyes of a beautiful woman
I also saw
the devils of hell
raging in the heart of an evil man
He who does not see the angels and devils in the beauty and malice of life
will be far removed from knowledge
and his spirit will be empty of affection
