The speaker aches with a quiet, weary longing, calling out to children to lift the fog from his mind. Their play pushes open windows toward the sun, where thoughts dart like swallows and morning brooks run fresh, while inside him all he feels is the cold wind of autumn and the first snowfall. This sharp contrast sets a mood of tender sorrow and wistful reverence. He sees children as new leaves, still soft with sweet juices, feeding on light and air before hardening into wood—they bring a gentler, sunnier climate to the whole human forest. Without them, the barren past would terrify him more than any dark future. Their caresses and bright looks outshine all the wisdom of books and every ballad ever sung, because they are living poems, and everything else is somehow dead. His plea is simple and intimate: let them whisper in his ear what the birds and winds sing, so he might glimpse that unhardened joy once more.
Children — Summary
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.