Neither the harps nor the crowns amused, nor the cherubs' dove-winged races-- <br />Holding hands forlornly the Children wandered beneath the Dome, <br />Plucking the splendid robes of the passers-by, and with pitiful! faces <br />Begging what Princes and Powers refused:--"Ah, please will you let us go home?" <br /> <br />Over the jewelled floor, nigh weeping, ran to them Mary the Mother, <br />Kneeled and caressed and made promise with kisses, and drew them along to the gateway-- <br />Yea, the all-iron unbribeable Door which Peter must guard and none other. <br />Straightway She took the Keys from his keeping, and opened and freed them straightway. <br /> <br />Then, to Her Son, Who had seen and smiled, She said: "On the night that I bore Thee, <br />What didst Thou care for a love beyond mine or a heaven that was not my arm? <br />Didst Thou push from the nipple, O Child, to hear the angels adore Thee <br />When we two lay in the breath of the kine?" And He said -- "Thou hast done no harm." <br /> <br />So through the Void the Children ran homeward merrily hand in hand, <br />Looking neither to left nor right where the breathless Heavens stood still. <br />And the Guards of the Void resheathed their swords, for they heard the Command: <br />"Shall I that have suffered the Children to come to Me hold them against their will?"<br /><br />Rudyard Kipling<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-return-of-the-children/
