Monday, August 17, 2009

The Children's Hour

My Mom used to recite this poem to me all the time when it was little. To this day, there's something about it that just comforts me and makes me smile. (My Mom did change the names of the children and the eye color in the original poem to fit my brothers and me and my Dad.)

The Children's Hour
By Henry Wasworth Longfellow

Between the dark and the daylight
When the light is beginning to lower
Comes a pause in the day's occupations
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 open
Of voices soft and sweet

From my study I see in the lamplight
Descending the broad hall stair
Sweet Sarah, Laughing Andrew
And Jordan 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 brown-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall
That 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!

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