Childhood

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow * Track #264 On The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Childhood by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Childhood Annotated

There was a time when I was very small,
&nbsp When my whole frame was but an ell in height;
Sweetly, as I recall it, tears do fall,
&nbsp And therefore I recall it with delight.

I sported in my tender mother's arms,
&nbsp And rode a-horseback on best father's knee;
Alike were sorrows, passions and alarms,
&nbsp And gold, and Greek, and love, unknown to me,

Then seemed to me this world far less in size,
&nbsp Likewise it seemed to me less wicked far;
Like points in heaven, I saw the stars arise,
&nbsp And longed for wings that I might catch a star.

I saw the moon behind the island fade,
&nbsp And thought, "Oh, were I on that island there,
I could find out of what the moon is made,
&nbsp Find out how large it is, how round, how fair!"

Wondering, I saw God's sun, through western skies,
&nbsp Sink in the ocean's golden lap at night,
And yet upon the morrow early rise,
&nbsp And paint the eastern heaven with crimson light;

And thought of God, the gracious Heavenly Father,
&nbsp Who made me, and that lovely sun on high,
And all those pearls of heaven thick-strung together,
&nbsp Dropped, clustering, from his hand o'er all the sky.

With childish reverence, my young lips did say
&nbsp The prayer my pious mother taught to me:
"O gentle God! oh, let me strive alway
&nbsp Still to be wise, and good, and follow Thee!"

So prayed I for my father and my mother,
&nbsp And for my sister, and for all the town;
The king I knew not, and the beggar-brother,
&nbsp Who, bent with age, went, sighing, up and down.

They perished, the blithe days of boyhood perished,
&nbsp And all the gladness, all the peace I knew!
Now have I but their memory, fondly cherished;—
&nbsp God! may I never lose that too!

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