Children

Kahlil GibranKahlil Gibran

1 min read · 12.4K reads

And a woman who held a babe against her ***** 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 archer's hand be for gladness;For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that

is stable.

Kahlil Gibran
About the poet

Kahlil Gibran

1883 - 1931/Male/LebaneseAn artist, poet, and writer of the New York Pen League, wrote in a romantic style at the heart of a renaissance in modern Arabic literature.

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