On Children - Damien Rice

Your children

Are not your children

They are the sons and daughters

Of life's longing for itself

They come through you

Not from you

Though they are with you

They belong to themselves

You may give them your love

But not your thoughts

For they have thoughts of their own

You may house their bodies not their souls

For their souls dwell

In a 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 the bow that is stable

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness

For even as He loves the arrow that flies

So He loves the bow that is stable