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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
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!
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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