| On 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 archer's hand be for gladness; | |
| For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable. |