On Children Kahlil gibran (1883-1931)

Your children are not your clihdren,
They are the sons and daughters of life’s longging for itself.

They coe 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 haouse of toorrow,
Which you cannot visist, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them,
But seek not to ake them like you, for life goes not bacward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the from which your children,
As living arrows are sent forth,
The archer sees the ark upon the path of the infinite,
And He bends you with His might,
That His arrows may go swift an far.