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!