Quote#Children
I thought that prattling boys and girls
Quote byElizabeth Prentiss · 1818–1878
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss (1882), Ch. V: "In the School of Suffering", § II, p. 138 ("My Nursery. 1852", lines written following the deaths that year of two of her first three children)..
English (original)
I thought that prattling boys and girls Would fill this empty room; That my rich heart would gather flowers From childhood's opening bloom.One child and two green graves are mine, This is God's gift to me; A bleeding, fainting, broken heart— This is my gift to Thee.
— Elizabeth Prentiss
More from Elizabeth Prentiss
You cannot prove to yourself that you love God by examining your feelings towards Him. They are indefinite and they fluctuate. But just so far as you obey Him, just so far, depend upon it, you love Him.
You cannot will to possess the spirit of Christ; that must come as His gift, but you can choose to study His life, and to imitate it.
O happy life! life hid with Christ in God! So making me, At home, and by the wayside, and abroad, Alone with Thee!
Sleep, baby, sleep! Thy father's watching the sheep. Thy mother's shaking the dreamland tree, And down drops a little dream for thee. Sleep, baby, sleep!
Ah, what a life is theirs who live in Christ; How vast the mystery! Reaching in height to heaven, and in its depth The unfathomed sea!
We must be wise task-masters, and not require of ourselves what we can not possibly perform. Recreation we must have. Otherwise, the strings of our soul, wound up to an unnatural tension, will break.