The Light of Thy Childhood Again

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Come from the silence so long and so deep;— Rock me to sleep, mother, — rock me to sleep! Over my heart, in the days that are flown, No love like mother-love ever has shone; No other worship abides and endures,— Faithful, unselfish, and patient like yours: None like a mother can charm away pain From the sick soul and the world-weary brain. Come, let your brown hair, just lighted with gold, Fall on your shoulders again as of old; Let it drop over my forehead tonight, Shading my faint eyes away from the light; For with its sunny-edged shadows once more Haply will throng the sweet visions of yore; Lovingly, softly, its bright billows sweep;— Rock me to sleep, mother, — rock me to sleep!

Mother, dear mother, the years have been long Since I last listened your lullaby song: Clasped to your heart in a loving embrace, With your light lashes just sweeping my face, Never hereafter to wake or to weep;— Rock me to sleep, mother, — rock me to sleep!

The Light of Thy Childhood Again

This poem is in the public domain. Sonnets are full of love, and this my tome Has many sonnets: What you do with time is what a grandmother clock does with it: Waiting is what happens to a snow-covered garden, a trunk under moss, hope for better times in the nineteenth century, or words in a. Academy of American Poets Educator Newsletter. The cricket chirped, "Quick! She could not reach her broad-brimmed hat;. The rippling brook laughed up at her,.

And trees and rocks were fast asleep,. The whippoorwills went gossiping. A little girl at nightfall climbed. A wind came rushing down the rocks,. And kissed her forehead, and went on. I'm only going to get the moon;. And all the forest rang, "Hoo—hoo! For now the moon seemed close at hand;. If she could only reach its edge,. And give the moon a push this way?

And wonder why boys ask for things. And slips the happy Peepsy in! It glides along the garden walk,. Girl-Peepsy rubbed her dazzled eyes;. She rubbed her eyes: Weave him a beautiful dream, little breeze! Don't feed me any longer,—. I'll answer for her, little girl. I lie here guessing every day. There, little girl, your sunny face. It turned his hair to spun silver,. He was there at play, white nestling! To load us with unseen treasure. Firmly we also believed it;. It has not grown old, or faded;.

If then he should win great riches,. May he never lose faith in moonshine,—. Right royally may he scatter. FOUR years old when the blackberries come! Columbines will not nod from the rock,. But she will run after me, all the same,. Cherries and strawberries, you may go;. If there's a grasshopper left in sight,. Overhead will the sky be blue,. And perhaps, perhaps I shall go to the wood. And there I shall gather my basket full.

To A Child

Mother, and all of us, pussy, too,. Watching the squirrels peep from the wall,. Months of summer will soon pass by;. Blue is the color of heaven,.

I could not look up to the sun. The winds would not break my stem. I would play with shadow and breeze;. Gentleman Robin, he walks up and down,. Robin, Sir Robin, gay, red-vested knight,. THEY're hastening up across the fields; I see them on their way! One sturdy little violet peeped out alone, in March,. And now the other violets are crowding up to see. There shiver, in rose-tinted white, the pale anemones;. They like the clear, cool weather well, when they are fairly out,. And when the wild geranium comes, in gauzy purple sheen,. Marsh-marigold and adder's-tongue will wade the brook across,.

Where cornel-flowers are grouped, in crowds, on strips of turf and moss;. Then will the birds sing anthems; for the earth and sky and air. Unnumbered multitudes of flowers it were in vain to name,. Why do you shiver so,. Trickle the little brooks. Hear the rain whisper,. RUN, little rivulet, run! Run, little rivulet, run! Sing to the fields of the sun.

THERE's a merry brown thrush sitting up in the tree. And the brown thrush keeps singing, "A nest do you see,. So the merry brown thrush sings away in the tree,.

The 'little-kid' feeling can be kept at any age

Unless we are as good as can be? DOWN by the gate of the orchard. Arthur is whispering, "Listen!

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NOT much to make us happy. Even as with men and women. Some bits of broken china,. With her family of rag-children,. But Nannie dear would rather. For a little white cloud passing,. Half Nannie's wealth lies hidden. Wild John likes forest-freedom,. And small Ned with a shingle.

Longfellow: To A Child, The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems

With large and little children. Good friends, your entertainment. WHITE little housed-up things,. Why do you shadow the face. Here we swing high on the bough! We and the pine-trees are glad. Then in the warm lull of noon. Always at home with you, Sun! O little housed-up things! I have wondered with concern that for some young adults Christmas means the least of all. Not only has that magic gone they knew as little boys or little girls at Christmastime, but perhaps skepticism has entered from their having "found out" about Christmas.

It is a beautiful, fanciful story, isn't it? The one that begins at the North Pole and centers around the well-fed little gentleman with the red suit and the white whiskers. It includes elves in a special workshop, a year-long preparation, lists of names. You remember when it included the accounting of deeds, both good and bad? It tells of chimneys and stockings and presents and a sleigh drawn, of all things, by eight reindeer who miraculously enough can fly.

I suppose every adult, if they were to admit it, at one time or another has felt that yearning: Can you remember when you knew just a little bit less about Christmas than you do now? Do you remember when you still believed? If there is a feeling of disappointment in you at Christmastime, and if you suffer a longing for times as they were, it means you never really discovered Christmas at all — only the child's feelings about it. So once you have lost your childhood, you have somehow lost Christmas.

I once made a test with nearly a thousand teenagers. Early one fall it had to be very early, before the Christmas advertisements and displays were in the stores I asked them to react with the first thought that came into their minds as I gave them a list of words.

Rock Me to Sleep

Among the words was Christmas. Would you believe that 94 percent of them responded with words such as presents, snow, reindeer, lights, trees, Santa Claus? Two percent responded with things that did not relate to Christmas at all. One boy, for instance, responded "broken leg. I was amazed that no one responded with "broken wallet. There were only four out of a hundred who responded with Christ, or words such as Bethlehem, Christmas carol, wise men, shepherds, or any word that might be connected with the story of the first Christmas. The Christmas season, now so commercialized, has trespassed upon this holy day.

We call it a holiday, but it is a holy day. We have trespassed upon it as did the moneychangers in the temple. You may, as many do, resist giving up the "childish" things about Christmas because you see virtue in them. Perhaps you remember the admonition of the Lord, "Except ye. But you cannot find it, this magic about Christmas, you cannot find it by going back to your childhood.

Victor Herbert's famous Babes in Toyland includes these words:. There is really no looking back. We lose our bearing if we leave the Christmas of childhood disillusioned.

It is easy thereafter to feel that "seeing is believing. I have no quarrel with that well-fed gentleman with the red suit and the white whiskers. He was very generous to me when I was a boy. Now it is for our grandchildren and we still look forward with great anticipation to his visit to our home each year. The tree is always there, the holly wreath, the stockings hung along the fireplace mantel.

When I was a boy we had no fireplace, so our stockings were hung on the back of the chairs.

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