Speed Adjustments
Let children, walking slow,
Keep time with the hour they know,
With the beat of their own bell.
Let cars boom by; let wheels hum.
Let the fast world, the fast, dumb
World roar past where they roam.
The sun moves at a snail's pace.
The planets amble through space
With a gait unhurried, calm.
The slow mind learns more than the fast,
With time to look before the last
And think around the whole.
Let time be the child's own servant;
Let adults remember, observant,
That the child moves slow,
That he walks with the hour he knows--
With the beat of his own bell.