[ { "title": "Before the Birth of One of Her Children", "author": "Anne Bradstreet", "lines": [ "All things within this fading world hath end,", "Adversity doth still our joys attend;", "No ties so strong, no friends so dear and sweet,", "But with death's parting blow are sure to meet.", "The sentence past is most irrevocable,", "A common thing, yet oh, inevitable.", "How soon, my Dear, death may my steps attend,", "How soon't may be thy lot to lose thy friend,", "We both are ignorant, yet love bids me", "These farewell lines to recommend to thee,", "That when the knot's untied that made us one,", "I may seem thine, who in effect am none.", "And if I see not half my days that's due,", "What nature would, God grant to yours and you;", "The many faults that well you know I have", "Let be interred in my oblivious grave;", "If any worth or virtue were in me,", "Let that live freshly in thy memory", "And when thou feel'st no grief, as I no harmes,", "Yet love thy dead, who long lay in thine arms,", "And when thy loss shall be repaid with gains", "Look to my little babes, my dear remains.", "And if thou love thyself, or loved'st me,", "These O protect from stepdame's injury.", "And if chance to thine eyes shall bring this verse,", "With some sad sighs honor my absent hearse;", "And kiss this paper for thy dear love's sake,", "Who with salt tears this last farewell did take." ], "linecount": "28" }, { "title": "In Reference to Her Children", "author": "Anne Bradstreet", "lines": [ "I had eight birds hatched in one nest,", "Four cocks there were, and hens the rest.", "I nursed them up with pain and care,", "Nor cost, nor labour did I spare,", "Till at the last they felt their wing,", "Mounted the trees, and learned to sing;", "Chief of the brood then took his flight", "To regions far and left me quite.", "My mournful chirps I after send,", "Till he return, or I do end:", "Leave not thy nest, thy dam and sire,", "Fly back and sing amidst this choir.", "My second bird did take her flight,", "And with her mate flew out of sight;", "Southward they both their course did bend,", "And seasons twain they there did spend,", "Till after blown by southern gales,", "They norward steered with filled sails.", "A prettier bird was no where seen,", "Along the beach among the treen.", "I have a third of colour white,", "On whom I placed no small delight;", "Coupled with mate loving and true,", "Hath also bid her dam adieu;", "And where Aurora first appears,", "She now hath perched to spend her years.", "One to the academy flew", "To chat among that learned crew;", "Ambition moves still in his breast", "That he might chant above the rest", "Striving for more than to do well,", "That nightingales he might excel.", "My fifth, whose down is yet scarce gone,", "Is 'mongst the shrubs and bushes flown,", "And as his wings increase in strength,", "On higher boughs he'll perch at length.", "My other three still with me nest,", "Until they're grown, then as the rest,", "Or here or there they'll take their flight,", "As is ordained, so shall they light.", "If birds could weep, then would my tears", "Let others know what are my fears", "Lest this my brood some harm should catch,", "And be surprised for want of watch,", "Whilst pecking corn and void of care,", "They fall un'wares in fowler's snare,", "Or whilst on trees they sit and sing,", "Some untoward boy at them do fling,", "Or whilst allured with bell and glass,", "The net be spread, and caught, alas.", "Or lest by lime-twigs they be foiled,", "Or by some greedy hawks be spoiled.", "O would my young, ye saw my breast,", "And knew what thoughts there sadly rest,", "Great was my pain when I you fed,", "Long did I keep you soft and warm,", "And with my wings kept off all harm,", "My cares are more and fears than ever,", "My throbs such now as 'fore were never.", "Alas, my birds, you wisdom want,", "Of perils you are ignorant;", "Oft times in grass, on trees, in flight,", "Sore accidents on you may light.", "O to your safety have an eye,", "So happy may you live and die.", "Meanwhile my days in tunes I'll spend,", "Till my weak lays with me shall end.", "In shady woods I'll sit and sing,", "And things that past to mind I'll bring.", "Once young and pleasant, as are you,", "But former toys (no joys) adieu.", "My age I will not once lament,", "But sing, my time so near is spent.", "And from the top bough take my flight", "Into a country beyond sight,", "Where old ones instantly grow young,", "And there with seraphims set song;", "No seasons cold, nor storms they see;", "But spring lasts to eternity.", "When each of you shall in your nest", "Among your young ones take your rest,", "In chirping language, oft them tell,", "You had a dam that loved you well,", "That did what could be done for young,", "And nursed you up till you were strong,", "And 'fore she once would let you fly,", "She showed you joy and misery;", "Taught what was good, and what was ill,", "What would save life, and what would kill.", "Thus gone, amongst you I may live,", "And dead, yet speak, and counsel give:", "Farewell, my birds, farewell adieu,", "I happy am, if well with you." ], "linecount": "93" }, { "title": "The Cry Of The Children", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,", "Ere the sorrow comes with years?", "They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,", "And that cannot stop their tears.", "The young lambs are bleating in the meadows,", "The young birds are chirping in the nest,", "The young fawns are playing with the shadows,", "The young flowers are blowing toward the west—", "But the young, young children, O my brothers,", "They are weeping bitterly!", "They are weeping in the playtime of the others,", "In the country of the free.", "", "Do you question the young children in their sorrow,", "Why their tears are falling so?", "The old man may weep for his tomorrow,", "Which is lost in Long Ago;", "The old tree is leafless in the forest,", "The old year is ending in the frost,", "The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest,", "The old hope is hardest to be lost:", "But the young, young children, O my brothers,", "Do you ask them why they stand", "Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers,", "In our happy Fatherland?", "", "They look up with their pale and sunken faces,", "And their looks are sad to see,", "For the man's hoary anguish draws and presses", "Down the cheeks of infancy;", "\"Your old earth,\" they say, \"is very dreary;", "Our young feet,\" they say, \"are very weak!", "Few paces have we taken, yet are weary—", "Our grave-rest is very far to seek.", "Ask the aged why they weep, and not the children,", "For the outside earth is cold,", "And we young ones stand without, in our bewildering,", "And the graves are for the old.\"", "", "\"True,\" say the children, \"it may happen", "That we die before our time.", "Little Alice died last year—her grave is shapen", "Like a snowball, in the rime.", "We looked into the pit prepared to take her:", "Was no room for any work in the close clay!", "From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her,", "Crying 'Get up, little Alice! it is day.'", "If you listen by that grave, in sun and shower,", "With your ear down, little Alice never cries;", "Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her,", "For the smile has time for growing in her eyes:", "And merry go her moments, lulled and stilled in", "The shroud by the kirk-chime.", "It is good when it happens,\" say the children,", "\"That we die before our time.\"", "", "Alas, alas, the children! They are seeking", "Death in life, as best to have;", "They are binding up their hearts away from breaking,", "With a cerement from the grave.", "Go out, children, from the mine and from the city,", "Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do;", "Pluck your handfuls of the meadow-cowslips pretty,", "Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let them through!", "But they answer, \"Are your cowslips of the meadows", "Like our weeds anear the mine?", "Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal-shadows,", "From your pleasures fair and fine!", "", "\"For oh,\" say the children, \"we are weary,", "And we cannot run or leap;", "If we cared for any meadows, it were merely", "To drop down in them and sleep.", "Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping,", "We fall upon our faces, trying to go;", "And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping,", "The reddest flower would look as pale as snow.", "For, all day, we drag our burden tiring", "Through the coal-dark, underground;", "Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron", "In the factories, round and round.", "", "\"For all day the wheels are droning, turning;", "Their wind comes in our faces,—", "Till our hearts turn, our heads with pulses burning,", "And the walls turn in their places:", "Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling,", "Turns the long light that drops adown the wall,", "Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling,—", "All are turning, all the day, and we with all.", "And all day, the iron wheels are droning,", "And sometimes we could pray,", "'O ye wheels,' (breaking out in a mad moaning)", "'Stop! be silent for today!' \"", "", "Ay, be silent! Let them hear each other breathing", "For a moment, mouth to mouth!", "Let them touch each other's hands, in a fresh wreathing", "Of their tender human youth!", "Let them feel that this cold metallic motion", "Is not all the life God fashions or reveals:", "Let them prove their living souls against the notion", "That they live in you, or under you, O wheels!", "Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward,", "Grinding life down from its mark;", "And the children's souls, which God is calling sunward,", "Spin on blindly in the dark.", "", "Now tell the poor young children, O my brothers,", "To look up to Him and pray;", "So the blessed One, who blesseth all the others,", "Will bless them another day.", "They answer, \"Who is God that He should hear us,", "While the rushing of the iron wheels is stirred?", "When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us", "Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word.", "And we hear not (for the wheels in their resounding)", "Strangers speaking at the door:", "Is it likely God, with angels singing round Him,", "Hears our weeping any more?", "", "\"Two words, indeed, of praying we remember,", "And at midnight's hour of harm,", "'Our Father,' looking upward in the chamber,", "We say softly for a charm.", "We know no other words except 'Our Father,'", "And we think that, in some pause of angels' song,", "God may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather,", "And hold both within His right hand which is strong.", "'Our Father!' If He heard us, He would surely", "(For they call Him good and mild)", "Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely,", "'Come and rest with me, my child.'", "", "\"But, no!\" say the children, weeping faster,", "\"He is speechless as a stone:", "And they tell us, of His image is the master", "Who commands us to work on.", "Go to!\" say the children,—\"up in heaven,", "Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find.", "Do not mock us; grief has made us unbelieving—", "We look up for God, but tears have made us blind.\"", "Do you hear the children weeping and disproving,", "O my brothers, what ye preach?", "For God's possible is taught by His world's loving,", "And the children doubt of each.", "", "And well may the children weep before you!", "They are weary ere they run;", "They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory", "Which is brighter than the sun.", "They know the grief of man, without its wisdom;", "They sink in man's despair, without its calm,—", "Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom,—", "Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm,—", "Are worn as if with age, yet unretrievingly", "The harvest of its memories cannot reap,—", "Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly.", "Let them weep! let them weep!", "", "They look up with their pale and sunken faces,", "And their look is dread to see,", "For they mind you of their angels in high places,", "With eyes turned on Deity;—", "\"How long,\" they say, \"how long, O cruel nation,", "Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart,—", "Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation,", "And tread onward to your throne amid the mart?", "Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper,", "And its purple shows your path!", "But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper", "Than the strong man in his wrath.\"" ], "linecount": "160" }, { "title": "As Children bid the Guest \"Good Night\"", "author": "Emily Dickinson", "lines": [ "As Children bid the Guest \"Good Night\"", "And then reluctant turn --", "My flowers raise their pretty lips --", "Then put their nightgowns on.", "", "As children caper when they wake", "Merry that it is Morn --", "My flowers from a hundred cribs", "Will peep, and prance again." ], "linecount": "8" }, { "title": "Good-Children Street", "author": "Eugene Field", "lines": [ "There's a dear little home in Good-Children street -", "My heart turneth fondly to-day", "Where tinkle of tongues and patter of feet", "Make sweetest of music at play;", "Where the sunshine of love illumines each face", "And warms every heart in that old-fashioned place.", "", "For dear little children go romping about", "With dollies and tin tops and drums,", "And, my! how they frolic and scamper and shout", "Till bedtime too speedily comes!", "Oh, days they are golden and days they are fleet", "With little folk living in Good-Children street.", "", "See, here comes an army with guns painted red,", "And swords, caps, and plumes of all sorts;", "The captain rides gaily and proudly ahead", "On a stick-horse that prances and snorts!", "Oh, legions of soldiers you're certain to meet -", "Nice make-believe soldiers - in Good-Children street.", "", "And yonder Odette wheels her dolly about -", "Poor dolly! I'm sure she is ill,", "For one of her blue china eyes has dropped out", "And her voice is asthmatic'ly shrill.", "Then, too, I observe she is minus her feet,", "Which causes much sorrow in Good-Children street.", "", "'T is so the dear children go romping about", "With dollies and banners and drums,", "And I venture to say they are sadly put out", "When an end to their jubilee comes:", "Oh, days they are golden and days they are fleet", "With little folk living in Good-Children street!", "", "But when falleth night over river and town,", "Those little folk vanish from sight,", "And an angel all white from the sky cometh down", "And guardeth the babes through the night,", "And singeth her lullabies tender and sweet", "To the dear little people in Good-Children Street.", "", "Though elsewhere the world be o'erburdened with care,", "Though poverty fall to my lot,", "Though toil and vexation be always my share,", "What care I - they trouble me not!", "This thought maketh life ever joyous and Sweet:", "There's a dear little home in Good-Children street." ], "linecount": "42" }, { "title": "Children", "author": "Henry Wadsworth Longfellow", "lines": [ "Come to me, O ye children!", "For I hear you at your play,", "And the questions that perplexed me", "Have vanished quite away.", "", "Ye open the eastern windows,", "That look towards the sun,", "Where thoughts are singing swallows", "And the brooks of morning run.", "", "In your hearts are the birds and the sunshine,", "In your thoughts the brooklet's flow,", "But in mine is the wind of Autumn", "And the first fall of the snow.", "", "Ah! what would the world be to us", "If the children were no more?", "We should dread the desert behind us", "Worse than the dark before.", "", "What the leaves are to the forest,", "With light and air for food,", "Ere their sweet and tender juices", "Have been hardened into wood, --", "", "That to the world are children;", "Through them it feels the glow", "Of a brighter and sunnier climate", "Than reaches the trunks below.", "", "Come to me, O ye children!", "And whisper in my ear", "What the birds and the winds are singing", "In your sunny atmosphere.", "", "For what are all our contrivings,", "And the wisdom of our books,", "When compared with your caresses,", "And the gladness of your looks?", "", "Ye are better than all the ballads", "That ever were sung or said;", "For ye are living poems,", "And all the rest are dead." ], "linecount": "36" }, { "title": "The Children's Hour", "author": "Henry Wadsworth Longfellow", "lines": [ "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 with golden hair.", "", "A whisper and then a silence:", "Yet I know by their merry eyes,", "They are plotting and planning together,", "To take me by surprise.", "", "A sudden rush from the stairway,", "A sudden raid from the hall!", "By three doors left unguarded", "They enter my castle wall!", "", "They climb up into my turret", "O'er the arms and back of my chair;", "If I try to escape, they surround me,", "They seem to be everywhere.", "", "They almost devour me with kisses,", "Their arms about me entwine,", "Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen", "In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!", "", "Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,", "Because you have scaled the wall,", "Such an old mustache as I am", "Is not a match for you all?", "", "I have you fast in my fortress", "And will not let you depart,", "But put you down in the dungeon", "In the round-tower of my heart.", "", "And there will I keep you forever,", "Yes, forever and a day,", "Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,", "And moulder in dust away!" ], "linecount": "40" }, { "title": "From The Short Story Shadow-Children", "author": "Louisa May Alcott", "lines": [ "Little shadows, little shadows", "Dancing on the chamber wall,", "While I sit beside the hearthstone", "Where the red flames rise and fall.", "Caps and nightgowns, caps and nightgowns,", "My three antic shadows wear;", "And no sound they make in playing,", "For the six small feet are bare.", "", "Dancing gayly, dancing gayly,", "To and fro all together,", "Like a family of daisies", "Blown about in windy weather;", "Nimble fairies, nimble fairies,", "Playing pranks in the warm glow,", "While I sing the nursery ditties", "Childish phantoms love and know.", "", "Now what happens, now what happens?", "One small shadow's tumbled down:", "I can see it on the carpet", "Softly rubbing its hurt crown.", "No one whimpers, no one whimpers;", "A brave-hearted sprite is this:", "See! the others offer comfort", "In a silent, shadowy kiss.", "", "Hush! they're creeping; hush! they're creeping,", "Up about my rocking-chair:", "I can feel their loving fingers", "Clasp my neck and touch my hair.", "Little shadows, little shadows,", "Take me captive, hold me tight,", "As they climb and cling and whisper,", "\"Mother dear, good night! good night!\"" ], "linecount": "32" }, { "title": "Sonnet XXII: With Fools and Children", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "To Folly", "", "With fools and children, good discretion bears;", "Then, honest people, bear with Love and me,", "Nor older yet, nor wiser made by years,", "Amongst the rest of fools and children be;", "Love, still a baby, plays with gauds and toys,", "And, like a wanton, sports with every feather,", "And idiots still are running after boys,", "Then fools and children fitt'st to go together.", "He still as young as when he first was born,", "No wiser I than when as young as he;", "You that behold us, laugh us not to scorn;", "Give Nature thanks you are not such as we.", "Yet fools and children sometimes tell in play", "Some, wise in show, more fools indeed than they." ], "linecount": "15" }, { "title": "To a Lady and Her Children", "author": "Phillis Wheatley", "lines": [ "O'erwhelming sorrow now demands my song:", "From death the overwhelming sorrow sprung.", "What flowing tears? What hearts with grief opprest?", "What sighs on sighs heave the fond parent's breast?", "The brother weeps, the hapless sisters join", "Th' increasing woe, and swell the crystal brine;", "The poor, who once his gen'rous bounty fed,", "Droop, and bewail their benefactor dead.", "In death the friend, the kind companion lies,", "And in one death what various comfort dies!", "Th' unhappy mother sees the sanguine rill", "Forget to flow, and nature's wheels stand still,", "But see from earth his spirit far remov'd,", "And know no grief recalls your best-belov'd:", "He, upon pinions swifter than the wind,", "Has left mortality's sad scenes behind", "For joys to this terrestrial state unknown,", "And glories richer than the monarch's crown.", "Of virtue's steady course the prize behold!", "", "What blissful wonders to his mind unfold!", "But of celestial joys I sing in vain:", "Attempt not, muse, the too advent'rous strain.", "", "No more in briny show'rs, ye friends around,", "Or bathe his clay, or waste them on the ground:", "Still do you weep, still wish for his return?", "How cruel thus to wish, and thus to mourn?", "No more for him the streams of sorrow pour,", "But haste to join him on the heav'nly shore,", "On harps of gold to tune immortal lays,", "And to your God immortal anthems raise." ], "linecount": "30" }, { "title": "Good and Bad Children", "author": "Robert Louis Stevenson", "lines": [ "Children, you are very little,", "And your bones are very brittle;", "If you would grow great and stately,", "You must try to walk sedately.", "", "You must still be bright and quiet,", "And content with simple diet;", "And remain, through all bewild'ring,", "Innocent and honest children.", "", "Happy hearts and happy faces,", "Happy play in grassy places--", "That was how in ancient ages,", "Children grew to kings and sages.", "", "But the unkind and the unruly,", "And the sort who eat unduly,", "They must never hope for glory--", "Theirs is quite a different story!", "", "Cruel children, crying babies,", "All grow up as geese and gabies,", "Hated, as their age increases,", "By their nephews and their nieces." ], "linecount": "20" }, { "title": "Home, My Little Children, Hear Are Songs For You", "author": "Robert Louis Stevenson", "lines": [ "COME, my little children, here are songs for you;", "Some are short and some are long, and all, all are new.", "You must learn to sing them very small and clear,", "Very true to time and tune and pleasing to the ear.", "", "Mark the note that rises, mark the notes that fall,", "Mark the time when broken, and the swing of it all.", "So when night is come, and you have gone to bed,", "All the songs you love to sing shall echo in your head." ], "linecount": "8" }, { "title": "Foreign Children", "author": "Robert Louis Stevenson", "lines": [ "Little Indian, Sioux, or Crow,", "Little frosty Eskimo,", "Little Turk or Japanee,", "Oh! don't you wish that you were me?", "", "You have seen the scarlet trees", "And the lions over seas;", "You have eaten ostrich eggs,", "And turned the turtle off their legs.", "", "Such a life is very fine,", "But it's not so nice as mine:", "You must often as you trod,", "Have wearied NOT to be abroad.", "", "You have curious things to eat,", "I am fed on proper meat;", "You must dwell upon the foam,", "But I am safe and live at home.", "Little Indian, Sioux or Crow,", "Little frosty Eskimo,", "Little Turk or Japanee,", "Oh! don't you wish that you were me?" ], "linecount": "20" }, { "title": "Tradition, thou art for suckling children", "author": "Stephen Crane", "lines": [ "Tradition, thou art for suckling children,", "Thou art the enlivening milk for babes;", "But no meat for men is in thee.", "Then --", "But, alas, we all are babes." ], "linecount": "5" }, { "title": "Prayer for Children", "author": "William Cowper", "lines": [ "Gracious Lord, our children see,", "By Thy mercy we are free;", "But shall these, alas! remain", "Subjects still of Satan's reign?", "Israel's young ones, when of old", "Pharaoh threaten'd to withhold,", "Then Thy messenger said, \"No;", "Let the children also go!\"", "", "When the angel of the Lord,", "Drawing forth his dreadful sword,", "Slew with an avenging hand,", "All the first-born of the land;", "Then Thy people's door he pass'd,", "Where the bloody sign was placed:", "Hear us, now, upon our knees,", "Plead the blood of Christ for these!", "", "Lord, we tremble, for we know", "How the fierce malicious foe,", "Wheeling round his watchful flight,", "Keeps them ever in his sight:", "Spread Thy pinions, King of kings!", "Hide them safe beneath Thy wings;", "Lest the ravenous bird of prey", "Stoop and bear the brood away." ], "linecount": "24" } ]