Peter Pan (c) The Walt Disney Co

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!
-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Children's Hour


Photo (c) AFP

Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.
-- Job 2:13

i was deeply affected by what happened in beslan. there's no excuse for the [more than] 350 lives that were taken -- children held hostage, and for 3 days had nothing to eat or drink other than their own urine. it is upsetting that others blame everything and everyone except terrorism -- terrorism, just as its Marxist or secessionist version in the West and Latin America was, is a matter of power -- who has it and how to get it -- not of poverty.

i do not hate, but i have no patience either, for terrorists who think they have reasons to bring havoc into the world. whatever they believe in, it will never be enough to justify their actions.

Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.
-- John 16:22