- Childlike -

By John Herlihy

(The first three lines quoted from 1 Corinthians 13:11)

“When he was a child, he spoke as a child;

He understood as a child, he thought as a child.

When he became a man, he put away childish things;”

But he did not put away the child within who still sings.

As children, time has no meaning, the day never ends;

They give of themselves freely, their short life just spends.

Their sorrows are as intense as any of their happiness;

But they linger not, their emotions fall into forgetfulness.

They may feel hurt by another, but they don’t hold a grudge,

Their lives have no room for bitterness, they just want fudge.

They may burst into tears, throw a tantrum, want their own way,

But these things soon pass with the coming of the new day.

With his upbringing tempered by his natural temerity,

His hopes and dreams always seemed foiled by life’s severity.

Ambition and drive but candlelight in the wick of his ambition;

He heard a higher call whose echo he hoped to come to fruition.

The secret inner nature of the child marks the birth of innocence,

A clear face, a truthful tongue, eyes that never blink in pretense.

Show me an old man with the face of innocence and I will see a child;

An old man still with the child within, still with the gift to be beguiled.

We were all young then, when we thought we would live forever;

It has taken a lifetime to learn the lesson that we now know better.

Wordsworth evoked the image of the child as father to the man;

That the child has something to teach according to God’s plan.

As he walks in old age, he still takes the child in him by the hand.

As a child, he could fly free; now in old age, he knows it is time to land.

He no longer thinks that he will live forever, as he did as a little tyke;

At least not here on earth, a thought that is, in some ways, child-like.

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(c) John Herlihy December 2018