मैं नीर भरी दुःख की बदली

मैं नीर भरी दुःख की बदली !
स्पंदन में चिर निस्पंद बसा,
क्रंदन में आहत विश्व हँसा,
नयनो में दीपक से जलते,
पलकों में निर्झनी मचली !
मैं नीर भरी दुःख की बदली !

मेरा पग पग संगीत भरा,
श्वांसों में स्वप्न पराग झरा,
नभ के नव रंग बुनते दुकूल,
छाया में मलय बयार पली !
मैं नीर भरी दुःख की बदली !

मैं क्षितिज भृकुटी पर घिर धूमिल,
चिंता का भर बनी अविरल,
रज कण पर जल कण हो बरसी,
नव जीवन अंकुर बन निकली !
मैं नीर भरी दुःख की बदली !

पथ न मलिन करते आना
पद चिन्ह न दे जाते आना
सुधि मेरे आगम की जग में
सुख की सिहरन हो अंत खिली !
मैं नीर भरी दुःख की बदली !

विस्तृत नभ का कोई कोना
मेरा न कभी अपना होना
परिचय इतना इतिहास यही
उमटी कल थी मिट आज चली !
मैं नीर भरी दुःख की बदली !

-- Mahadevi Verma

Pity the nation

Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion.

Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave, eats a bread it does not harvest, and drinks a wine that flows not from its own wine-press.

Pity the nation that acclaims the bull as hero, and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful.

Pity the nation that despises a passion in its dream, yet submits in its awakening.

Pity the nation that raises not its voice when it walks in a funeral, boasts not except among its ruins, and will rebel not save when its neck is laid between the sword and the block.

Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking.

Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpetings and farewells him with hootings, only to welcome another with trumpetings again.

Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years and whose strong men are yet in the cradle.

Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation.

--Khalil Gibran
The garden of the Prophet (1934)

Children

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, "Speak to us of Children."

And he said:

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.

The poem is taken from 'The Prophet' a famous scholary work of Kahlil Gibran.