I spent a wonderful evening with my brother’s family and couldn’t help but think of William Blake’s poem, Nurse’s Song, as the children chased one another far into the evening light. If you haven’t read it before, you’re in for a treat:

When the voices of children are heard on the green,
And laughing is heard on the hill,
My heart is at rest within my breast,
And everything else is still.

‘Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down,
And the dews of night arise;
Come, come leave off play, and let us away
Till the morning appears in the skies.’

‘No, no, let us play, for it is yet day,
And we cannot go to sleep;
Besides, in the sky the little birds fly,
And the hills are all cover’d with sheep.’

‘Well, well, go and play till the light fades away,
And then go home to bed.’
The little ones leapèd, and shoutèd, and laugh’d
And all the hills echoèd.

What would the world be like if adults couldn’t go to sleep for the same reason? Our children can teach us a great many lessons about living if we are willing to sit, with heart at rest, and listen.