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.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · The Children's Hour
Joy & wonder
“Between the dark and the daylight,”
- Author
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- Work
- The Children's Hour
- Found in
- The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- Year
- 1860
- Length
- 52 words
- Source
- Project Gutenberg eBook #1365
Public domain. This passage is in the public domain. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow died in 1882, more than 70 years ago, and the work was first published in 1860. You can copy, print, read aloud or sell it without asking permission; a credit is kind but not required. The text is copied word for word from the Project Gutenberg edition linked here.
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My heart leaps up when I beholdA rainbow in the sky:So was it when my life began;So is it now I am a man;So be it when I shall grow old,Or let me die!The Child is father of the Man;And I could wish my days to beBound each to each by natural piety.
Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,Whether the summer clothe the general earthWith greenness, or the redbreast sit and singBetwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branchOf mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatchSmokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fallHeard only in the trances of the blast,Or if the secret ministry of frostShall hang them up in silent icicles,Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.
“Oh! my Daddy, my Daddy!” That scream went like a knife into the heart of everyone in the train, and people put their heads out of the windows to see a tall pale man with lips set in a thin close line, and a little girl clinging to him with arms and legs, while his arms went tightly round her.
Sweet and low, sweet and low,Wind of the western sea,Low, low, breathe and blow,Wind of the western sea!Over the rolling waters go,Come from the dying moon, and blow,Blow him again to me;While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps.Sleep and rest, sleep and rest,Father will come to thee soon;Rest, rest, on mother's breast,Father will come to thee soon;Father will come to his babe in the nest,Silver sails all out of the westUnder the silver moon:Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep.
The joys of parents are secret; and so are their griefs and fears. They cannot utter the one; nor they will not utter the other.
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