Trailblazer Hour

This poem has been on my mind all week, I think it's appropriate after a week with nine Trailblazers (7-9 year olds). I was blessed with another great group of beautiful girls. This age group was wonderful in the fact that they were willing to love me almost instantly--which made my job much easier! And we played a lot of games that required imagination and a sense of humor! It was so fun to have my pathetic ideas jumped on by these little girls who actually enjoyed them!
I love those girls and I have locked them up forever "in the round-tower of my heart"(read below). I miss them a lot, but I admit, I'm glad I don't have so many under my wing right now! It's not easy to be the instant mother of 9 little ones...

Anyway, this poem is called "The Children's Hour", and it was written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in the early 1800s.

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.

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 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!