The Children

Those truants from home and from heaven,—
They have made me more manly and mild;
And I know now how Jesus could liken
The kingdom of God to a child.

I ask not a life for the dear ones,

All radiant, as others have done,

But that life may have just enough shadow
To temper the glare of the sun;

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I would pray God to guard them from evil,
But my prayer would bound back to myself;-

Ah! a seraph may pray for a sinner,

But a sinner must pray for himself.

The twig is so easily bended,

I have banished the rule and the rod

I have taught them the goodness of knowledge,
They have taught me the goodness of God:
My heart is the dungeon of darkness

Where I shut them for breaking a rule;

My frown is sufficient correction;
My love is the law of the school.

I shall leave the old house in the autumn,
To traverse its threshold no more;
Ah, how I shall sigh for the dear ones

That meet me each morn at the door!
I shall miss the "good nights" and the kisses,
And the gush of their innocent glee,
The group on the green, and the flowers
That are brought every morning for me.

I shall miss them at morn and at even,
Their song in the school and the street;
I shall miss the low hum of their voices,

And the tread of their delicate feet.
When the lessons of life are all ended,

And death says: "The school is dismissed!"

May the little ones gather around me,

To bid me good night and be kissed!

Charles Monroe Dickinson [1842

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 haH 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!

The Desire

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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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [1807-1882]

LAUS INFANTIUM

In praise of little children I will say

God first made man, then found a better way
For woman, but his third way was the best.

Of all created things, the loveliest

And most divine are children. Nothing here
Can be to us more gracious or more dear.

And though, when God saw all his works were good,
There was no rosy flower of babyhood,

'Twas said of children in a later day

That none could enter Heaven save such as they.

The earth, which feels the flowering of a thorn,
Was glad, O little child, when you were born;
The earth, which thrills when skylarks scale the blue,
Soared up itself to God's own Heaven in you;
And Heaven, which loves to lean down and to glass
Its beauty in each dewdrop on the grass,-
Heaven laughed to find your face so pure and fair,
And left, O little child, its reflex there.

William Canton [1845

THE DESIRE

GIVE me no mansions ivory white

Nor palaces of pearl and gold;

Give me a child for all delight,

Just four years old.

Give me no wings of rosy shine
Nor snowy raiment, fold on fold,
Give me a little boy all mine,
Just four years old.

Give me no gold and starry crown
Nor harps, nor palm branches unrolled;
Give me a nestling head of brown,
Just four years old.

Give me a check that's like the peach,
Two arms to clasp me from the cold;
And all my heaven's within my reach,
Just four years old.

Dear God, You give me from Your skies
A little paradise to hold,

As Mary once her Paradise,

Just four years old.

Katherine Tynan [1861

A CHILD'S LAUGHTER

ALL the bells of heaven may ring,
All the birds of heaven may sing,
All the wells on earth may spring,
All the winds on earth may bring
Ail sweet sounds together;
Sweeter far then all things heard,
Hand of harper, tone of bird,
Sound of woods at sundawn stirred,
Welling water's winsome word,
Wind in warm, wan weather.

One thing yet there is, that none,

Hearing ere its chime be done,
Knows not well the sweetest one
Heard of man beneath the sun,
Hoped in heaven hereafter;

Soft and strong and loud and light,

Seven Years Old

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Very sound of very light,

Heard from morning's rosiest height,

When the soul of all delight,

Fills a child's clear laughter.

Golden bells of welcome rolled
Never forth such note, nor told
Hours so blithe in tones so bold,
As the radiant mouth of gold
Here that rings forth heaven.
If the golden-crested wren
Were a nightingale-why, then
Something seen and heard of men

Might be half as sweet as when

Laughs a child of seven.

Algernon Charles Swinburne [1837-1909]

SEVEN YEARS OLD

SEVEN white roses on one tree,

Seven white loaves of blameless leaven,

Seven white sails on one soft sea,

Seven white swans on one lake's lea,
Seven white flowerlike stars in Heaven,

All are types unmeet to be

For a birthday's crown of seven.

Not the radiance of the roses,

Not the blessing of the bread,

Not the breeze that ere day grows is
Fresh for sails and swans, and closes
Wings above the sun's grave spread
When the starshine on the snows is
Sweet as sleep on sorrow shed.

Nothing sweeter, nothing best,
Holds so good and sweet a treasure
As the love wherewith once blest

Joy grows holy, grief takes rest,
Life, half tired with hours to measure,
Fills his eyes and lips and breast

With most light and breath of pleasure;