Comes a pause in the day's occupations,

That is known 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 to-
gether

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 into 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!

ENCELADUS

UNDER Mount Etna he lies,

It is slumber, it is not death;

Towards yonder cloud-land in the

West,

Towards yonder Islands of the Blest,
Whose steep sierra far uplifts
Its craggy summits white with drifts.

Blow, winds! and waft through all the rooms

The snow-flakes of the cherry-blooms! Blow, winds! and bend within my reach

The fiery blossoms of the peach!

O Life and Love! O happy throng Of thoughts, whose only speech is song!

O heart of man! canst thou not be
Blithe as the air is, and as free?

SOMETHING LEFT UNDONE LABOR with what zeal we will, Something still remains undone, Something uncompleted still

Waits the rising of the sun.

By the bedside, on the stair,

At the threshold, near the gates, With its menace or its prayer,

Like a mendicant it waits;

Waits, and will not go away; Waits, and will not be gainsaid; By the cares of yesterday

Each to-day is heavier made;

Till at length the burden seems Greater than our strength can bear, Heavy as the weight of dreams,

Pressing on us everywhere.

And we stand from day to day,
Like the dwarfs of times gone by
Who, as Northern legends say,
On their shoulders held the sky.

WEARINESS

O LITTLE feet! that such long years Must wander on through hopes and fears,

Must ache and bleed beneath your load;

I, nearer to the wayside inn

Where toil shall cease and rest begin,

Am weary, thinking of your road! O little hands! that, weak or strong, Have still to serve or rule so long,

Have still so long to give or ask; I, who so much with book and pen Have toiled among my fellow-men,

Am weary, thinking of your task

O little hearts! that throb and beat
With such impatient, feverish heat,

Such limitless and strong desires; Mine, that so long has glowed and burned,

With passions into ashes turned,

Now covers and conceals its fires.

O little souls! as pure and white
And crystalline as rays of light

Direct from heaven, their source divine;

Refracted through the mist of years, How red my setting sun appears,

How lurid looks this soul of mine!