CHILDREN
By
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
&/\&/\&
Come to me, O ye children !
For I hear you at your play:
And the questions that perplex'd me
Have vanish'd quite away.
Ye open the Eastern windows
That look toward the sun,
Where thoughts are singing swallows
And the brooks of morning run.
In your hearts are the birds and the sunshine,
In your thoughts the brooklets flow:
But in mine is the wind of Autumn
And the first fall of the snow.
Ah ! what would the wolrd be to us,
If the children were no more ?
We should dread the desert behind us
Worse than the dark before.
What the leaves are to the forest,
With light and air for food,
Ere their sweet and tender juices
Have been harden'd into wood, ---
That to the world are children:
Through them if feels the glow
Of a brighter and sunnier climate
Than reaches the trunks below.
Come to me, O ye children !
And whisper in my ear
What the birds and the winds are singing
In your sunny atmosphere.
For what are all our contrivings,
And the wisdom of our books,
When compared with your caresses
And the gladness of your looks ?
Ye are better than all the ballads
That ever were sung or said:
For ye are living poems,
And all the rest are dead.
&/\&/\&