CHILDREN – By Khalil Gibran, Lebanese poet

CHILDREN – By Khalil Gibran, Lebanese poet

Your children are not your children
They are the sons and daughters of life’s longing for itself
They come through you but not from you
You may give them your love, but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts
You may house their bodies but not 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 or tarries with yesterday
You are the bow from which your children
As living arrows are send 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 our bending in the archer’s hand be of gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
So He loves also the bow that is stable