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The Children's Hour, 1899
Open Edition Print
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|  | Longfellow
Poems |
The Children's Hour
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 unguarded
They enter my castle wall!
They climb up
into my turret
O'er the arms and back of my chair;
If I try to
escape, they surround me;
They seem to be everywhere.
They
almost devour 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 scaled 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!
- Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow
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