Sometimes our welcome has no tongue; <br />Children are often in the way. <br />We tolerate them while they are young, <br />And do not always share their play. <br /> <br />We play our games and they play theirs. <br />And when a dozen years have flown <br />They have, we find, their own affairs <br />And all their interests are their own. <br /> <br />They are, we reason, in our debt, <br />And wistfully we look for pay: <br />They give us what we ask -- and yet <br />We feel we are rather in the way. <br /> <br />Our love, now fond, would manifest <br />Itself in every act and word; <br />But we are wont to veil it, lest <br />We feel a little bit absurd. <br /> <br />More fond we grow, and duteous; <br />We only live for them, we say. <br />They too would live -- but not for us; -- <br />So runs this pleasant world away.<br /><br />Bert Leston Taylor<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/children-72/
