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"MY POETRY PAGE"
Come to me, O ye children!
For I hear you at your play,
And the questions that perplexed me,
Have vanished quite away.
Ye open the eastern windows,
That look towards the sun,
Where thoughts are singing swallows,
And the brooks of morning run.
In your hearts are the birds and the sunshine,
In your thoughts the brooklets flow,
But in mine is the wind of Autumn,
And the first fall of the snow.
Ah! What would the world be to us,
If the children were no more?
We should dread the desert behind us,
Worse than the dark before.
What the leaves are to the forest,
With light and air for food,
Ere the sweet and tender juices,
Have been hardened into wood.
That to the world are children,
Through them it feels the glow,
Of a brighter and sunnier climate,
That reaches the trunks below.
Come to me, O ye children!
And whisper in my ear,
What the birds and the winds are singing,
In your sunny atmosphere.
For what are all our contrivings,
And the wisdom of our books,
When compared with your caresses,
And the gladness of your looks.
You are better than all the ballads,
That were ever sung or said,
For you are living poems,
And all the rest are dead.
When you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down the book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of the shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.
And bending down beside the glowing bars
Murmur a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
Kahli Gibran
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 with you His might
that His arrows might 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.
Author Unknown
I got up early one morning
And rushed right into the day.
I had so much to accomplish
That I didn't have time to pray.
Problems just tumbled about me,
And heavier came each task.
"Why doesn't God help me", I wondered,
He answered, "You didn't ask!"
I wanted to see joy and beauty
But the day toiled on, gray and bleak,
I wondered why God didn't show me
He said, "But you didn't seek."
I tried to come into God's presence,
I used all my keys at the lock,
God gently and lovingly chided,
"My Child, you didn't knock".
I woke up early this morning, and
Paused before entering the day
I had so much to accomplish,
That I had to take time to pray.
A BAG OF TOOLS
R.L. Sharpe
Isn't it strange
That princes and kings,
And clowns that caper
in sawdust rings,
And common people
Like you and me
Are builders for eternity?
Each is give a bag of tools,
A shapeless mass,
A book of rules;
And each must make--
Ere life is flown--
A stumbling block
Or a steppingstone.