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