Print of Thomas Buchanan Read's portrait of Longfellow's three daughters
"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:[1] "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.[2]
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.
The 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 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![3]
References[]
- ↑ Nelson, Randy F. The Almanac of American Letters. Los Altos, California: William Kaufmann, Inc., 1981: 63. ISBN 086576008X
- ↑ Maine Memory.net
- ↑ Maine Historical Society Website
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