Saint-Exupery's "Generation to Generation"

Amanda Witt has a wonderful short piece by Antoine de Saint-Exupery (author of the book The Little Prince), which begins:

In a house which becomes a home,
one hands down and another takes up
the heritage of mind and heart,
laughter and tears, musings and deeds.
Love, like a carefully loaded ship,
crosses the gulf between the generations.
Therefore, we do not neglect the ceremonies
of our passage: when we wed, when we die,
and when we are blessed with a child;
When we depart and when we return;
When we plant and when we harvest.
Let us bring up our children. It is not
the place of some official to hand to them
their heritage...

She also has background on the author in the same post.