HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

9

27, 1807. He had two sons and three daughters, and these three are celebrated in the first poem in the following collection. The poet always welcomed children to his house, and he was made very happy by their thought of him. His seventy-fifth birthday was celebrated by school-children all over the country. A few days after he was taken ill, and died March 24, 1882.

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 1
In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!

Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,2
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old moustache 3 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!

1 Near Bingen on the Rhine is a little square Mouse-Tower, so called from an old word meaning toll, since it was used as a toll-house; but there is an old tradition that a certain Bishop Hatto, who had been cruel to the people, was attacked in the tower by a great army of rats and mice. See Southey's famous poem, Bishop Hatto.

2 An Italian word for bands of robbers.

3 A translation of the French phrase vieille moustache, which is used of a veteran soldier.

THE WINDMILL.

13

THE WINDMILL.

BEHOLD! a giant am I!

Aloft here in my tower,

With my granite jaws I devour The maize, and the wheat, and the rye, And grind them into flour.

I look down over the farms;
In the fields of grain I see
The harvest that is to be,
And I fling to the air my arms,
For I know it is all for me.

I hear the sound of flails

Far off, from the threshing-floors In barns, with their open doors, And the wind, the wind in my sails, Louder and louder roars.

I stand here in my place,

With my foot on the rock below,
And whichever way it may blow

I meet it face to face,

As a brave man meets his foe.

And while we wrestle and strive,
My master, the miller, stands

And feeds me with his hands;
For he knows who makes him thrive,
Who makes him lord of lands.

On Sundays I take my rest;

Church-going bells begin.