Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE CHILDREN, by PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: The children! Ah, the children! / your innocent, joyous ones Last Line: For ever and ever more! Subject(s): Children; Childhood | ||||||||
THE children! ah, the children! Your innocent, joyous ones; Your daughters, with souls of sunshine; Your buoyant and laughing sons. Look long in their happy faces, Drink love from their sparkling eyes, For the wonderful charm of childhood, How soon it withers and dies! A few fast-vanishing summers, A season or twain of frost, And you suddenly ask, bewildered "What is it my heart hath lost?" Perhaps you see by the hearth-stone Some Juno, stately and proud, Or a Hebe whose softly ambushed eyes Flash out from the golden cloud Of lavish and beautiful tresses That wantonly floating, stray O'er the white of a throat and bosom More fair than blossoms in May. And perhaps you mark their brothers -- Young heroes who spurn the sod With the fervor of antique knighthood, And the air of a Grecian god! But where, ah, where are the children, Your household fairies of yore? Alack! they are dead, and their grace has fled For ever and ever more! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE THREE CHILDREN by JOSEPHINE JACOBSEN CHILDREN SELECTING BOOKS IN A LIBRARY by RANDALL JARRELL COME TO THE STONE ... by RANDALL JARRELL THE LOST WORLD by RANDALL JARRELL A SICK CHILD by RANDALL JARRELL CONTINENT'S END by ROBINSON JEFFERS ON THE DEATH OF FRIENDS IN CHILDHOOD by DONALD JUSTICE THE POET AT SEVEN by DONALD JUSTICE A STORM IN THE DISTANCE (AMONG THE GEORGIAN HILLS) by PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE |
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