The Children's Hour
By: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Longfellow's dramatic, mysterious writing had a major impact by the 1950's. Children celebrated his birthday as if it were a holiday, some of the lines from his poems turned into well known sayings, and he influenced artists and composers of many time periods.
"The Children's Hour" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (read by Tom O'Bedlam)
Between the dark and the daylight, When the night is beginning to lower, Comes a pause in the day's occupations, That is known as the Children's Hour.
Children are pent up in school all day or other obligations and by the time they get home, they are a ball of energy waiting to go. There's a time in late afternoon that all children get their time to be free.
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!
The narrator is obviously not a child and is being underestimated by a child who has gotten them to play along with their game. The fact that a child got the narrator to play along shows that not only children can play, but that everyone gets that hour.
Theme
The Children's Hour says that if we don't take a break every now and then that we are going to be passed by by all the enjoyable things in life. That we need to "Stop and smell the roses".