“I love these little people and it is not a slight thing,
when they who are so fresh from God, love us.” - Dickens
I wanted to do something on children this week and felt to share my favorite poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I love and cherish the privilege of being the mother to seven children and some extras. I always felt there should be a time during the day when they were the center of my attention. Breakfast and dinner were favorite times to listen to them and share the happenings of the day. Bedtime was for playing hide and seek, reading stories, and singing lullaby songs. This poem tells a story of this time of the day..
The Children’s Hour
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Between the dark and the daylight, When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day’s occupations, That is known as the Children’s Hour
I hear in the chamber above me The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened, And voices soft and sweet.
From my study I see in the lamplight, Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra, And Edith with golden hair.
A whisper, and then a silence, Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning together To take me by surprise.
A sudden rush from the stairway, A sudden raid from the hall!
By three doors left ungraded They enter my castle wall!
They climb up into my turrent O’er the arms and back of my chair,
If I try to escape, they surround me, They seem to be everywhere.
They almost devoure me with kisses, Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen In his Mouse Tower on the Rhine!
Do you think, o blue-eyed banditti, Because you have scalled the wall,
Such an old mustache as I am Is not a match for you all!
I have you fast in my fortress, And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon In the round-tower of my heart.
And there will I keep you forever Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin, And moulder in dust away!
Published in 1860,The Children’s Hour written by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is a beloved poem of America!
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