Epitaph For Our Children

Blame us for these who were cradled and rocked in our chaos;Watching our sidelong watching, fearing our fear;Playing their blind-man's-bluff in our gutted mansions,Their follow-my-leader on a stair that ended in air.

The Quadroon Girl

The Slaver in the broad lagoon

Lay moored with idle sail;

He waited for the rising moon,

And for the evening gale.

Under the shore his boat was tied,

And all her listless crew

Watched the gray alligator slide

Into the still bayou.

Odors of orange-flowers, and spice,

Reached them from time to time,

Like airs that breathe from Paradise

Upon a world of crime.

The Planter, under his roof

A Child Asleep

How he sleepeth! having drunken

Weary childhood's mandragore,

From his pretty eyes have sunken

Pleasures, to make room for more---

Sleeping near the withered nosegay, which he pulled the day before.

Nosegays! leave them for the waking:

Throw them earthward where they grew.

Dim are such, beside the breaking

Amaranths he looks unto---

Folded eyes see brighter colours than the open ever do.

The Children's Song

Puck of Pook's Hills

Land of our Birth, we pledge to thee
Our love and toil in the years to be;
When we are grown and take our place
As men and women with our race.

Father in Heaven who lovest all,
Oh, help Thy children when they call;
That they may build from age to age
An undefiled heritage.

Teach us to bear the yoke in youth,
With steadfastness and careful truth;
That, in our time, Thy

A Child-World

_The Child-World--long and long since lost to view--A Fairy Paradise!--How always fair it was and fresh and new--How every affluent hour heaped heart and eyesWith treasures of surprise!Enchantments tangible: The under-brinkOf dawns that launched the sightUp seas of gold: The dewdrop on the pink,With all the green earth in it and blue heightOf heavens infinite:The liquid, dripping songs of

A child said, What is the grass, poem by Walt Whitman

A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full
hands;
How could I answer the child?. . . .I do not know what it
is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful
green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we
may see and

The Children's Hour

Between the dark and the daylight,

When the night is beginning to lower,

Comes a pause in the day's occupation,

That is know as the children's hour.

I hear in the chamber above me

The patter of little feet,

The sound of a door that is opened,

And voices soft and sweet.

From my study I see in the lamplight,

Descending the broad hall stair,

Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,

And Edith