Two Duets - A Quartet

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.

Discovering the World

by Jaan Kross

All people were born
By the blue sea.
All fathers
Are bent over their looms
Weaving the texture
Their children proceed.
All children run from the chatter of the loom
To watch on the coast of the blue sea,
With their toes in the water,
Ships vanishing into the horizon.
Because children must run there
And ships must vanish there,
And their toes must get wet.
And everyone gets under way
As everyone must set off.
Everyone.
Some for the sake of all,
A few for the sake of many,
Each for their own good.
Because everyone should discover their own world.