Of Gibrans The Prophet, one of my all-time favorite reads, I bring you the following lines. The book I quote is a Wordsworth Classics of World Literature, 1996 edition published by Wordsworth Editions Limited.

And a woman who held a babe to her bosom said, Speak to us of Children.
And he said:
Your children are not your children
They are the sons and daughters of Lifes longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you.
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the Archers hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, October 16th, 2005 at 4:26 am and is filed under Literature. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.