Saturday, March 10, 2007

Children - a poem

I love poetry and my friend Emma sent me a beautiful poem recently which inspired me to revisit one of my poetry books "Childhood - An Anthology of Verse and Prose".

Don't think I'm that posh with a huge collection of poetry books... I was pregnant for Kitan when I wandered into a charity shop and spotted it on the shelf for £1.50. I bought it because it was illustrated with beautiful art work of children (like the one below) and the poetry mirrored my thoughts and feelings at that time.

Here's one of my favorite poems from the book... I hope you like it too.

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Children


And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said,
Speak to us of Children.
And he said:
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.
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.


Children from 'The Prophet' by Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)

2 comments:

JD said...

That is beautiful

chioma said...

lovely poem and very true.

France, Italy, Spain - here we come!

Omara's Weight loss progress (started diet 17th March 2007)