The Children’s Hour – poemat wydany w 1860, jego autorem jest Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Poemat ukazał się po raz pierwszy we wrześniowym wydaniu gazety The Atlantic Monthly. Utwór mówi o idealnej rodzinie poety i jego córkach: Alice, Edith i Anne AllegraNelson, Randy F. The Almanac of American Letters. Los Altos, California: William Kaufmann, Inc., 1981: 63. .
Wraz z poematem emitowany była grafika autorstwa Thomasa Buchanana Reada przedstawiająca córki Longfellowa.
Tekst poematu (oryg. - jęz. ang.) 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!
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Kategoria:Amerykańskie utwory poetyckie Kategoria:Utwory literackie z 1860