| On Children |
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| And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, "Speak to us of Children." |
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| And he said: |
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| Your children are not your children. |
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| They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. |
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| They come through you but not from you, |
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| And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you. |
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| You may give them your love but not your thoughts. |
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| For they have their own thoughts. |
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| You may house their bodies but not their souls, |
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| For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. |
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| You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. |
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| For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. |
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| You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. |
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| 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. |
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| Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness; |
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| For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable. | |