Excerpt from The Children's Hour Many and many an autumn Its changing leaves had shed, Where, thick on hill and valley, Calm sleep our loyal dead; And where the cannon thundered, And deepest lay the slain, Tall orchards blushed with fruitage, And yellow waved the grain. For fifty harvest summers, From South to North had swept In zones of gracious plenty, Since death one harvest kept, Which took with hand unsparing Our bravest and our best, And left us law and order, And peace, and hope, and rest. Beneath a bending willow, Which was young in sixty-four, A group of children gathered About a cottage door. And in their midst a soldier Sat, scarred, and bent, and gray, And told them tales of battles, And charge, and scout, and fray. At last a little maiden Beside him, bending low, Said, Grandpapa, in that old time. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.