Sunday, January 30, 2011

The Childrens' Hour

CARRY ON TUESDAY
http://carryontuesdayprompt.blogspot.com/
This week we are asked to use the first verse of the Longfellow poem of the same name.

"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"

CHILDRENS' HOUR
Two small words to conjour with......two words.....  just 'Children's Hour';
A tiny phrase that hardly seems to speak with any power.
For what could be more gentle than the scene you see above,
A delightful motherly picture, embued with parental love?
Between the dark and the daylight, when the shadows began to creep,
The children were read a story, before they went to sleep.
*
These days, when the night is beginning, life is hardly the same!
The modern child will be occupied with the latest computer game!
The parents are certainly not relaxed! They've exhausting occupations!
And when evening comes there is no pause! Life's full of complications!
No time to lower the lamps to dim or cuddle on the settee,
No time to devote a whole long hour to home and family!
*
But wait! This picture also recalls a time when the Ma and Pa,
Were often very distant souls, only seen from afar!
In high-class families Nannies lurked, ready to whisk away
That dear little girl who only saw her Mother once a day!
Not for them the hurly-burly, that is known, world-wide, right now!
Not for them the spat, the laugh, the hasty kiss, the row!
*
In  days gone by, there was a lack, as far as I can see
Distance lends enchantment!
Enjoy your family!
*
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RULE OF THUMB

How would you care to be beaten with a stick as thick as a thumb?
No doubt you'd end up black and blue, very sore and numb!
Well, in the fourteen hundreds, a husband had the right
To beat his wife in this very way; the law said that he might.
However, the stick must be 'slender', bigger than a thumb was banned,
Although he could beat her as hard as he liked, just with his open hand!
And the women had nowhere to run to and so they had to stay!
That's how arose 'The Rule of Thumb' we hear about every day!
The Good Old Days? I think not! For us, those days have gone,
But in some parts of this sad old world something similar still goes on!
*

1 comment:

Kat said...

CHILDRENS' HOUR: Distance lends enchantment! A point to ponder..!!!

RULE OF THUMB: ..bigger than a thumb was banned.. How considerate..!!! hmmmmph.