| |
| 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 | 5 |
| 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, | 10 |
| 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 | 15 |
| 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! | 20 |
| |
| 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, | 25 |
| 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, | 30 |
| 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 | 35 |
| 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. | 40 |
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