The Children's Hour (poem)

"The Children's Hour" is an 1860 poem first published by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in the September 1860 edition of "The Atlantic Monthly." The poem describes the poet's idyllic family life with his own three daughters, Alice, Edith, and Anne Allegra: [Nelson, Randy F. "The Almanac of American Letters". Los Altos, California: William Kaufmann, Inc., 1981: 63. ISBN 086576008X] "grave Alice, and laughing Allegra, and Edith with golden hair."

A photographic print of Thomas Buchanan Read's portrait of the three Longfellow daughters was widely distributed along with the poem. A copy of the print was found near the body of a soldier at the American Civil War Battle of Gettysburg after the July 1- July 3, 1863 battle. [ [http://www.mainememory.net/bin/Detail?ln=10528 Maine Memory.net] ]

The poem has, like Longfellow's other works, been called overly-sentimental, but it has remained one of the most frequently cited favorite American poems.

Full poem

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 meThe 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 eyesThey are plotting and planning togetherTo take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway,A sudden raid from the hall!By three doors left unguardedThey enter my castle wall!

They climb up into my turretO'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 BingenIn 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 amIs 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 dungeonIn 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! [ [http://www.hwlongfellow.org/poems_poem.php?pid=44 Maine Historical Society Website] ]

References