A PRAYER FOR THE CHILDREN

Contributed by Ginger, Tallahassee, FL

We pray for the Children
who sneak Popsicle's before supper, 
who erase holes in math workbooks, 
who can never find their shoes. 
And we pray for those who stare at photographers 
from behind barbed wire, 
who can't bound down the street in a new pair of sneakers, 
who never "counted potatoes," 
who are born in places where we wouldn't be caught dead, 
who never go to the circus, who live in an x-rated world 
We pray for children who bring us sticky kisses 
and fistfuls of dandelions, 
who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money. 
And we pray for those who never get dessert, 
who have no safe blanket to drag behind them, 
who watch their parents, watch them die, 
who can't find any bread to steal, 
who don't have rooms to clean up, 
whose pictures aren't on anybody's dresser, 
whose monsters are real.   

We pray for children who spend all their allowance before Tuesday,
who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food, 
who like ghost stories, 
who shove dirty clothes under the bed, 
who never rinse out the tub, 
who get visits from the tooth fairy, 
who don't like to be kissed in front of the carpool, 
who squirm in church and scream on the phone, 
whose tears we sometimes laugh at and 
whose smiles make us cry. 
And we pray for those whose nightmares come in the daytime, 
who will eat anything, 
who have never seen a dentist, 
who aren't spoiled by anybody, 
who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep, 
who live and move, but have no being. 
We pray for the children who want to be carried 
and for those who must, 
For those we never give up on 
and for those who don't get a second chance. 
For those we smother and ... 
for those who will grab the hand of anybody 
kind enough to offer it. 

                                ..................Anonymous

TO A CHILD DANCING IN THE WIND

By: William Butler Yeats

Dance there upon the shore;

What need have you to care

For wind or water's roar?

And tumble out your hair

That the salt drops have wet;

Being young you have not known

The fool's triumph, nor yet

Love lost as soon as won,

Nor the best labourer dead

And all the sheaves to bind.

What need have you to dread

The monstrous crying of the wind?

THE STOLEN CHILD

By: William Butler Yeats

Where dips the rocky highland

Of sleuth wood in the lake,

There lies a leafy island

Where flapping herons wake

The drowsy water-rats;

There we've hid our faery vats,

Full of berries

And of reddest stolen cherries.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses

The dim grey sands with light,

Far off by furthest Rosses

We foot it all the night,

Weaving golden dances,

Mingling hands and mingling glances

Till the moon has taken flight;

To and fro we leap

And chase the frothy bubbles,

While the world is full of troubles

And is anxious in its sleep.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes

From the hills above Glen-Car,

In pools among the rushes

That scarce could bathe a star,

We seek for slumbering trout

And whispering in their ears

Give them unquiet dreams;

Leaning softly out

From ferns that drop their tears

Over the young streams,

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Away with us he's going,

The solemn-eyed:

He'll hear no more the lowing

Of the calves on the warm hillside

Or the kettle on the bob

Round and round the oatmeal-chest.

For he comes, the human child,

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

From a world more full of weeping than he can understand.