No sweeter thing than children's ways and wiles,Surely, we say, can gladden eyes and ears:Yet sometime sweeter than their words or smilesAre even their tears.To one for once a piteous tale was read,How, when the murderous mother crocodileWas slain, her fierce brood famished, and lay dead,Starved, by the Nile.In vast green reed-beds on the vast grey slimeThose monsters motherless and helpless lay,Perishing only for the parent's crimeWhose seed were they.Hours after, toward the dusk, our blithe small birdOf Paradise, who has our hearts in keeping,Was heard or seen, but hardly seen or heard,For pity weeping.He was so sorry, sitting still apart,For the poor little crocodiles, he said.Six years had given him, for an angel's heart,A child's instead.Feigned tears the false beasts shed for murderous ends,We know from travellers' tales of crocodiles:But these tears wept upon them of my friend'sOutshine his smiles.What heavenliest angels of what heavenly cityCould match the heavenly heart in children here?The heart that hallowing all things with its pityCasts out all fear?So lovely, so divine, so dear their laughterSeems to us, we know not what could be more dear:But lovelier yet we see the sign thereafterOf such a tear.With sense of love half laughing and half weepingWe met your tears, our small sweet-spirited friend:Let your love have us in its heavenly keepingTo life's last end.
No sweeter thing than children's ways and wiles,Surely, we say, can gladden eyes and ears:Yet sometime sweeter than their words or smilesAre even their tears.
To one for once a piteous tale was read,How, when the murderous mother crocodileWas slain, her fierce brood famished, and lay dead,Starved, by the Nile.
In vast green reed-beds on the vast grey slimeThose monsters motherless and helpless lay,Perishing only for the parent's crimeWhose seed were they.
Hours after, toward the dusk, our blithe small birdOf Paradise, who has our hearts in keeping,Was heard or seen, but hardly seen or heard,For pity weeping.
He was so sorry, sitting still apart,For the poor little crocodiles, he said.Six years had given him, for an angel's heart,A child's instead.
Feigned tears the false beasts shed for murderous ends,We know from travellers' tales of crocodiles:But these tears wept upon them of my friend'sOutshine his smiles.
What heavenliest angels of what heavenly cityCould match the heavenly heart in children here?The heart that hallowing all things with its pityCasts out all fear?
So lovely, so divine, so dear their laughterSeems to us, we know not what could be more dear:But lovelier yet we see the sign thereafterOf such a tear.
With sense of love half laughing and half weepingWe met your tears, our small sweet-spirited friend:Let your love have us in its heavenly keepingTo life's last end.
All the bells of heaven may ring,All the birds of heaven may sing,All the wells on earth may spring,All the winds on earth may bringAll sweet sounds together;Sweeter far than all things heard,Hand of harper, tone of bird,Sound of woods at sundawn stirred,Welling water's winsome word,Wind in warm wan weather,One thing yet there is, that noneHearing ere its chime be doneKnows not well the sweetest oneHeard of man beneath the sun,Hoped in heaven hereafter;Soft and strong and loud and light,Very sound of very lightHeard from morning's rosiest height,When the soul of all delightFills a child's clear laughter.Golden bells of welcome rolledNever forth such notes, nor toldHours so blithe in tones so bold,As the radiant mouth of goldHere that rings forth heaven.If the golden-crested wrenWere a nightingale—why, then,Something seen and heard of menMight be half as sweet as whenLaughs a child of seven.
All the bells of heaven may ring,All the birds of heaven may sing,All the wells on earth may spring,All the winds on earth may bringAll sweet sounds together;Sweeter far than all things heard,Hand of harper, tone of bird,Sound of woods at sundawn stirred,Welling water's winsome word,Wind in warm wan weather,
One thing yet there is, that noneHearing ere its chime be doneKnows not well the sweetest oneHeard of man beneath the sun,Hoped in heaven hereafter;Soft and strong and loud and light,Very sound of very lightHeard from morning's rosiest height,When the soul of all delightFills a child's clear laughter.
Golden bells of welcome rolledNever forth such notes, nor toldHours so blithe in tones so bold,As the radiant mouth of goldHere that rings forth heaven.If the golden-crested wrenWere a nightingale—why, then,Something seen and heard of menMight be half as sweet as whenLaughs a child of seven.
How low soe'er men rank us,How high soe'er we win,The children far above usDwell, and they deign to love us,With lovelier love than ours,And smiles more sweet than flowers;As though the sun should thank usFor letting light come in.With too divine complaisance,Whose grace misleads them thus,Being gods, in heavenly blindnessThey call our worship kindness,Our pebble-gift a gem:They think us good to them,Whose glance, whose breath, whose presence,Are gifts too good for us.The poet high and hoaryOf meres that mountains bindFelt his great heart more oftenYearn, and its proud strength softenFrom stern to tenderer mood,At thought of gratitudeShown than of song or storyHe heard of hearts unkind.But with what words for tokenAnd what adoring tearsOf reverence risen to passion,In what glad prostrate fashionOf spirit and soul subdued,May man show gratitudeFor thanks of children spokenThat hover in his ears?The angels laugh, your brothers,Child, hearing you thank me,With eyes whence night grows sunny,And touch of lips like honey,And words like honey-dew:But how shall I thank you?For gifts above all othersWhat guerdon-gift may be?What wealth of words caressing,What choice of songs found best,Would seem not as derision,Found vain beside the visionAnd glory from aboveShown in a child's heart's love?His part in life is blessing;Ours, only to be blest.
How low soe'er men rank us,How high soe'er we win,The children far above usDwell, and they deign to love us,With lovelier love than ours,And smiles more sweet than flowers;As though the sun should thank usFor letting light come in.
With too divine complaisance,Whose grace misleads them thus,Being gods, in heavenly blindnessThey call our worship kindness,Our pebble-gift a gem:They think us good to them,Whose glance, whose breath, whose presence,Are gifts too good for us.
The poet high and hoaryOf meres that mountains bindFelt his great heart more oftenYearn, and its proud strength softenFrom stern to tenderer mood,At thought of gratitudeShown than of song or storyHe heard of hearts unkind.
But with what words for tokenAnd what adoring tearsOf reverence risen to passion,In what glad prostrate fashionOf spirit and soul subdued,May man show gratitudeFor thanks of children spokenThat hover in his ears?
The angels laugh, your brothers,Child, hearing you thank me,With eyes whence night grows sunny,And touch of lips like honey,And words like honey-dew:But how shall I thank you?For gifts above all othersWhat guerdon-gift may be?
What wealth of words caressing,What choice of songs found best,Would seem not as derision,Found vain beside the visionAnd glory from aboveShown in a child's heart's love?His part in life is blessing;Ours, only to be blest.
Praise of the knights of oldMay sleep: their tale is told,And no man cares:The praise which fires our lips isA knight's whose fame eclipsesAll of theirs.The ruddiest light in heavenBlazed as his birth-star sevenLong years ago:All glory crown that old yearWhich brought our stout small soldierWith the snow!Each baby born has oneStar, for his friends a sun,The first of stars:And we, the more we scan it,The more grow sure your planet,Child, was Mars.For each one flower, perchance,Blooms as his cognizance:The snowdrop chill,The violet unbeholden,For some: for you the goldenDaffodil.Erect, a fighting flower,It breasts the breeziest hourThat ever blew.And bent or broke things brittleOr frail, unlike a littleKnight like you.Its flower is firm and freshAnd stout like sturdiest fleshOf children: allThe strenuous blast that parchesSpring hurts it not till March isNear his fall.If winds that prate and fretRemark, rebuke, regret,Lament, or blameThe brave plant's martial passion,It keeps its own free fashionAll the same.We that would fain seem wiseAssume grave mouths and eyesWhose looks reproveToo much delight in battle:But your great heart our prattleCannot move.We say, small children shouldBe placid, mildly goodAnd blandly meek:Whereat the broad smile rushesFull on your lips, and flushesAll your cheek.If all the stars that areLaughed out, and every starCould here be heard,Such peals of golden laughterWe should not hear, as afterSuch a word.For all the storm saith, still,Stout stands the daffodil:For all we say,Howe'er he look demurely,Our martialist will surelyHave his way.We may not bind with bandsThose large and liberal hands,Nor stay from fight,Nor hold them back from giving:No lean mean laws of livingBind a knight.And always here of oldSuch gentle hearts and boldOur land has bred:How durst her eye rest else onThe glory shed from NelsonQuick and dead?Shame were it, if but oneSuch once were born her son,That one to have borne,And brought him ne'er a brother:His praise should bring his motherShame and scorn.A child high-souled as heWhose manhood shook the seaSmiles haply here:His face, where love lies basking,With bright shut mouth seems asking,What is fear?The sunshine-coloured fistsBeyond his dimpling wristsWere never closedFor saving or for sparing—For only deeds of daringPredisposed.Unclenched, the gracious handsLet slip their gifts like sandsMade rich with oreThat tongues of beggars ravishFrom small stout hands so lavishOf their store.Sweet hardy kindly handsLike these were his that standsWith heel on gorgeSeen trampling down the dragonOn sign or flask or flagon,Sweet Saint George.Some tournament, perchance,Of hands that couch no lance,Might mark this spotYour lists, if here some pleasantSmall Guenevere were present,Launcelot.My brave bright flower, you needNo foolish song, nor heedIt more than springThe sighs of winter strickenDead when your haunts requickenHere, my king.Yet O, how hardly mayThe wheels of singing stayThat whirl alongBright paths whence echo raisesThe phantom of your praises,Child, my song!Beyond all other thingsThat give my words fleet wings,Fleet wings and strong,You set their jesses ringingTill hardly can I, singing,Stint my song.But all things better, friend,And worse must find an end:And, right or wrong,'Tis time, lest rhyme should baffle,I doubt, to put a snaffleOn my song.And never may your earAught harsher hear or fear,Nor wolfish nightNor dog-toothed winter snarlingBehind your steps, my darlingMy delight!For all the gifts you giveMe, dear, each day you live,Of thanks aboveAll thanks that could be spokenTake not my song in token,Take my love.
Praise of the knights of oldMay sleep: their tale is told,And no man cares:The praise which fires our lips isA knight's whose fame eclipsesAll of theirs.
The ruddiest light in heavenBlazed as his birth-star sevenLong years ago:All glory crown that old yearWhich brought our stout small soldierWith the snow!
Each baby born has oneStar, for his friends a sun,The first of stars:And we, the more we scan it,The more grow sure your planet,Child, was Mars.
For each one flower, perchance,Blooms as his cognizance:The snowdrop chill,The violet unbeholden,For some: for you the goldenDaffodil.
Erect, a fighting flower,It breasts the breeziest hourThat ever blew.And bent or broke things brittleOr frail, unlike a littleKnight like you.
Its flower is firm and freshAnd stout like sturdiest fleshOf children: allThe strenuous blast that parchesSpring hurts it not till March isNear his fall.
If winds that prate and fretRemark, rebuke, regret,Lament, or blameThe brave plant's martial passion,It keeps its own free fashionAll the same.
We that would fain seem wiseAssume grave mouths and eyesWhose looks reproveToo much delight in battle:But your great heart our prattleCannot move.
We say, small children shouldBe placid, mildly goodAnd blandly meek:Whereat the broad smile rushesFull on your lips, and flushesAll your cheek.
If all the stars that areLaughed out, and every starCould here be heard,Such peals of golden laughterWe should not hear, as afterSuch a word.
For all the storm saith, still,Stout stands the daffodil:For all we say,Howe'er he look demurely,Our martialist will surelyHave his way.
We may not bind with bandsThose large and liberal hands,Nor stay from fight,Nor hold them back from giving:No lean mean laws of livingBind a knight.
And always here of oldSuch gentle hearts and boldOur land has bred:How durst her eye rest else onThe glory shed from NelsonQuick and dead?
Shame were it, if but oneSuch once were born her son,That one to have borne,And brought him ne'er a brother:His praise should bring his motherShame and scorn.
A child high-souled as heWhose manhood shook the seaSmiles haply here:His face, where love lies basking,With bright shut mouth seems asking,What is fear?
The sunshine-coloured fistsBeyond his dimpling wristsWere never closedFor saving or for sparing—For only deeds of daringPredisposed.
Unclenched, the gracious handsLet slip their gifts like sandsMade rich with oreThat tongues of beggars ravishFrom small stout hands so lavishOf their store.
Sweet hardy kindly handsLike these were his that standsWith heel on gorgeSeen trampling down the dragonOn sign or flask or flagon,Sweet Saint George.
Some tournament, perchance,Of hands that couch no lance,Might mark this spotYour lists, if here some pleasantSmall Guenevere were present,Launcelot.
My brave bright flower, you needNo foolish song, nor heedIt more than springThe sighs of winter strickenDead when your haunts requickenHere, my king.
Yet O, how hardly mayThe wheels of singing stayThat whirl alongBright paths whence echo raisesThe phantom of your praises,Child, my song!
Beyond all other thingsThat give my words fleet wings,Fleet wings and strong,You set their jesses ringingTill hardly can I, singing,Stint my song.
But all things better, friend,And worse must find an end:And, right or wrong,'Tis time, lest rhyme should baffle,I doubt, to put a snaffleOn my song.
And never may your earAught harsher hear or fear,Nor wolfish nightNor dog-toothed winter snarlingBehind your steps, my darlingMy delight!
For all the gifts you giveMe, dear, each day you live,Of thanks aboveAll thanks that could be spokenTake not my song in token,Take my love.
What will it please you, my darling, hereafter to be?Fame upon land will you look for, or glory by sea?Gallant your life will be always, and all of it free.Free as the wind when the heart of the twilight is stirredEastward, and sounds from the springs of the sunrise are heard:Free—and we know not another as infinite word.Darkness or twilight or sunlight may compass us round,Hate may arise up against us, or hope may confound;Love may forsake us; yet may not the spirit be bound.Free in oppression of grief as in ardour of joyStill may the soul be, and each to her strength as a toy:Free in the glance of the man as the smile of the boy.Freedom alone is the salt and the spirit that givesLife, and without her is nothing that verily lives:Death cannot slay her: she laughs upon death and forgives.Brightest and hardiest of roses anear and afarGlitters the blithe little face of you, round as a star:Liberty bless you and keep you to be as you are.England and liberty bless you and keep you to beWorthy the name of their child and the sight of their sea:Fear not at all; for a slave, if he fears not, is free.
What will it please you, my darling, hereafter to be?Fame upon land will you look for, or glory by sea?Gallant your life will be always, and all of it free.
Free as the wind when the heart of the twilight is stirredEastward, and sounds from the springs of the sunrise are heard:Free—and we know not another as infinite word.
Darkness or twilight or sunlight may compass us round,Hate may arise up against us, or hope may confound;Love may forsake us; yet may not the spirit be bound.
Free in oppression of grief as in ardour of joyStill may the soul be, and each to her strength as a toy:Free in the glance of the man as the smile of the boy.
Freedom alone is the salt and the spirit that givesLife, and without her is nothing that verily lives:Death cannot slay her: she laughs upon death and forgives.
Brightest and hardiest of roses anear and afarGlitters the blithe little face of you, round as a star:Liberty bless you and keep you to be as you are.
England and liberty bless you and keep you to beWorthy the name of their child and the sight of their sea:Fear not at all; for a slave, if he fears not, is free.
If the wind and the sunlight of April and August had mingled the past and hereafterIn a single adorable season whose life were a rapture of love and of laughter,And the blithest of singers were back with a song; if again from his tomb as from prison,If again from the night or the twilight of ages Aristophanes had arisen,With the gold-feathered wings of a bird that were also a god upon earth at his shoulders,And the gold-flowing laugh of the manhood of old at his lips, for a joy to beholders,He alone unrebuked of presumption were able to set to some adequate measureThe delight of our eyes in the dawn that restores them the sun of their sense and the pleasure.For the days of the darkness of spirit are over for all of us here, and the seasonWhen desire was a longing, and absence a thorn, and rejoicing a word without reason.For the roof overhead of the pines is astir with delight as of jubilant voices,And the floor underfoot of the bracken and heather alive as a heart that rejoices.For the house that was childless awhile, and the light of it darkened, the pulse of it dwindled,Rings radiant again with a child's bright feet, with the light of his face is rekindled.And the ways of the meadows that knew him, the sweep of the down that the sky's belt closes,Grow gladder at heart than the soft wind made them whose feet were but fragrant with roses,Though the fall of the year be upon us, who trusted in June and by June were defrauded,And the summer that brought us not back the desire of our eyes be gone hence unapplauded.For July came joyless among us, and August went out from us arid and sterile,And the hope of our hearts, as it seemed, was no more than a flower that the seasons imperil,And the joy of our hearts, as it seemed, than a thought which regret had not heart to remember,Till four dark months overpast were atoned for, and summer began in September.Hark, April again as a bird in the house with a child's voice hither and thither:See, May in the garden again with a child's face cheering the woods ere they wither.June laughs in the light of his eyes, and July on the sunbright cheeks of him slumbers,And August glows in a smile more sweet than the cadence of gold-mouthed numbers.In the morning the sight of him brightens the sun, and the noon with delight in him flushes,And the silence of nightfall is music about him as soft as the sleep that it hushes.We awake with a sense of a sunrise that is not a gift of the sundawn's giving,And a voice that salutes us is sweeter than all sounds else in the world of the living,And a presence that warms us is brighter than all in the world of our visions beholden,Though the dreams of our sleep were as those that the light of a world without grief makes golden.For the best that the best of us ever devised as a likeness of heaven and its glory,What was it of old, or what is it and will be for ever, in song or in story,Or in shape or in colour of carven or painted resemblance, adored of all ages,But a vision recorded of children alive in the pictures of old or the pages?Where children are not, heaven is not, and heaven if they come not again shall be never:But the face and the voice of a child are assurance of heaven and its promise for ever.
If the wind and the sunlight of April and August had mingled the past and hereafterIn a single adorable season whose life were a rapture of love and of laughter,And the blithest of singers were back with a song; if again from his tomb as from prison,If again from the night or the twilight of ages Aristophanes had arisen,With the gold-feathered wings of a bird that were also a god upon earth at his shoulders,And the gold-flowing laugh of the manhood of old at his lips, for a joy to beholders,He alone unrebuked of presumption were able to set to some adequate measureThe delight of our eyes in the dawn that restores them the sun of their sense and the pleasure.For the days of the darkness of spirit are over for all of us here, and the seasonWhen desire was a longing, and absence a thorn, and rejoicing a word without reason.For the roof overhead of the pines is astir with delight as of jubilant voices,And the floor underfoot of the bracken and heather alive as a heart that rejoices.For the house that was childless awhile, and the light of it darkened, the pulse of it dwindled,Rings radiant again with a child's bright feet, with the light of his face is rekindled.And the ways of the meadows that knew him, the sweep of the down that the sky's belt closes,Grow gladder at heart than the soft wind made them whose feet were but fragrant with roses,Though the fall of the year be upon us, who trusted in June and by June were defrauded,And the summer that brought us not back the desire of our eyes be gone hence unapplauded.For July came joyless among us, and August went out from us arid and sterile,And the hope of our hearts, as it seemed, was no more than a flower that the seasons imperil,And the joy of our hearts, as it seemed, than a thought which regret had not heart to remember,Till four dark months overpast were atoned for, and summer began in September.Hark, April again as a bird in the house with a child's voice hither and thither:See, May in the garden again with a child's face cheering the woods ere they wither.June laughs in the light of his eyes, and July on the sunbright cheeks of him slumbers,And August glows in a smile more sweet than the cadence of gold-mouthed numbers.In the morning the sight of him brightens the sun, and the noon with delight in him flushes,And the silence of nightfall is music about him as soft as the sleep that it hushes.We awake with a sense of a sunrise that is not a gift of the sundawn's giving,And a voice that salutes us is sweeter than all sounds else in the world of the living,And a presence that warms us is brighter than all in the world of our visions beholden,Though the dreams of our sleep were as those that the light of a world without grief makes golden.For the best that the best of us ever devised as a likeness of heaven and its glory,What was it of old, or what is it and will be for ever, in song or in story,Or in shape or in colour of carven or painted resemblance, adored of all ages,But a vision recorded of children alive in the pictures of old or the pages?Where children are not, heaven is not, and heaven if they come not again shall be never:But the face and the voice of a child are assurance of heaven and its promise for ever.