Come to me, O ye children! <br /> For I hear you at your play, <br />And the questions that perplexed me <br /> Have vanished quite away. <br /> <br />Ye open the eastern windows, <br /> That look towards the sun, <br />Where thoughts are singing swallows <br /> And the brooks of morning run. <br /> <br />In your hearts are the birds and the sunshine, <br /> In your thoughts the brooklet's flow, <br />But in mine is the wind of Autumn <br /> And the first fall of the snow. <br /> <br />Ah! what would the world be to us <br /> If the children were no more? <br />We should dread the desert behind us <br /> Worse than the dark before. <br /> <br />What the leaves are to the forest, <br /> With light and air for food, <br />Ere their sweet and tender juices <br /> Have been hardened into wood, -- <br /> <br />That to the world are children; <br /> Through them it feels the glow <br />Of a brighter and sunnier climate <br /> Than reaches the trunks below. <br /> <br />Come to me, O ye children! <br /> And whisper in my ear <br />What the birds and the winds are singing <br /> In your sunny atmosphere. <br /> <br />For what are all our contrivings, <br /> And the wisdom of our books, <br />When compared with your caresses, <br /> And the gladness of your looks? <br /> <br />Ye are better than all the ballads <br /> That ever were sung or said; <br />For ye are living poems, <br /> And all the rest are dead.<br /><br />Henry Wadsworth Longfellow<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/children/
