KHALIL GIBRAN THE PROPHET poem ON CHILDREN English TEXT ENG
Khalil Gibran
The Prophet
On Children
Arabic literature
Ginran – poetry in prose
Original English text
Gibran Khalil Gibran (January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931) was a Lebanese-American writer, poet, visual artist and Lebanese nationalist.
Khalil Gibran is the third-best-selling poet of all time, behind Shakespeare and Laozi. In the Arab world, Khalil Gibran is regarded as a literary and political rebel. His romantic style was at the heart of a renaissance in modern Arabic literature, especially prose poetry, breaking away from the classical school. In Lebanon, Khalil Gibran is still celebrated as a literary hero.
Khalil Gibran is chiefly known in the English-speaking world for his 1923 book “The Prophet”, an early example of inspirational fiction including a series of philosophical essays written in poetic English prose, that inspired, from the sixties, the “New Age”.
Below, the text of the prose poetry: “On Children”, extracted from the book “the Prophet” by Khalil Gibran, in the original English language.
Below below, you can find the video, audio-book, of Poetry by Khalil Gibran: “On Children” in English.
Good reading and good listening.
Khalil Gibran All the poems > here
Index
The Prophet book
by Khalil Gibran
(with the link on yeyebook to where you can read them)
THE COMING OF THE SHIP
ON CHILDREN
ON HOUSES
ON CLOTHES
ON BUYING AND SELLING
ON LAWS
ON FREEDOM
ON PAIN
ON SELF-KNOWLEDGE
ON TEACHING
ON TALKING
ON TIME
ON PRAYER
ON PLEASURE
ON BEAUTY
ON RELIGION
ON DEATH
THE FAREWELL
Khalil Gibran
The prophet – On Children
Arabic literature
Original English text
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.
…
..
.
Khalil Gibran – On Children
from: The prophet
Arabic literature – poetry in prose
Original English text
Khalil Gibran All the poems > here
Video Audiobook The Prophet
“On Children” by Kahlil Gibran
read by James Earl Jones
