HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, “The Children’s Hour,” Atlantic Monthly, September 1860, Volume VI, Number 3

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, “The Children’s Hour,” Atlantic Monthly, September 1860, Volume VI, Number 3

As Chapter Five in this exhibition demonstrates, Edgar Allan Poe was surely right when he predicted that Longfellow’s reputation would decline over time. But it’s also true that this poem went straight from the pages of Boston’s longest running magazine, the Atlantic Monthly, into the hearts of the reading public and remained there for a long time. With its dramatic narrative and sentimental warmth, it captures an experience familiar to many parents: being interrupted at work by the “patter of little feet.”

Boston Public Library, Research Library

Recitation: "The Children’s Hour"

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, “The Children’s Hour,” Atlantic Monthly, September 1860, Volume VI, Number 3

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 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 moustache 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 dungeons
   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!