Poems & Selections

On Children

By Kahlil 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 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.

She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that’s best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes; Thus mellowed to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies.One shade the more, one ray the less, Had half impaired the nameless grace Which waves […]
by John McCrae In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place, and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below.We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow Loved and were loved, and now we […]
May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind always be at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, and rains fall soft upon your fields. And until we meet again, May God hold you in the palm of His hand.
God saw you getting tired and a cure was not to be, so He put his arms around you, and whispered, “Come to me.” With tearful eyes we watched you, and saw you pass away. Although we love you dearly, we could not make you stay. A golden heart stopped beating, hard working hands rest. […]