They are the sons and daughters of life longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you.
And though they are with you, they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
Because they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls;
For their souls dwell in the mansion of tomorrow,
You can not visit, not even in a dream.
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 driven.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with his strength
That His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For as he loves the arrow that flies,
loves also the bow that is stable "