Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A WORD FOR THE FUTURE by EDITH BLAND NESBIT

First Line: WHEN WE SOW THE GOOD SEED OF THE PRESENT
Last Line: THOSE SMALL HANDS -- GROWN STRONG -- WILL HAVE DONE.
Subject(s): CHILDREN; SOCIALISM; CHILDHOOD;
WHEN we sow the good seed of the present,
That the future will garner and gain,
For whom do we till, weed, and water,
For whom watch the sun and the rain,
With passionate faith that our waiting
And labour will not be in vain?
Not the men and the women about us --
Themselves but themselves can make free;
Not they, more than we, the full harvest
Of the seed we are sowing will see;
But the fruits will be reaped by the children --
The men and the women to be.
O, the children! -- the rose-leaf soft faces,
The sweet little voices, and mild,
The arms that have clung and caressed us,
The lips that have babbled and smiled, --
Have these blinded us so we discern not
That a child is not only a child?
Not only a toy and a treasure
For mother's and father's delight,
Not only a flower want may wither,
Or lovelessness ruin and blight,
But a soul to be saved, in Truth's sunshine,
Or lost where Truth's absence makes night.
And the souls that shall shape the world's future
Are the souls we are shaping to-day!
Let the children have share in our justice,
Not just in our pity and play.
They will do the world's work, and our work is
To show them the work and the way.
And he who is helping the children,
Who are frail as the buds of a rose,
Who is keeping the canker from blighting
The blossoms before they unclose,
And making the future sons hardy
To face all the future's fell foes, --
He is doing the world's work eternal
That the first dawn of soul saw begun;
He is hastening the hour when the children
The battles we lost will have won:
When the deeds that we did not, and could not,
Those small hands -- grown strong -- will have done.





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