Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - Childhood lyrics

There was a time when I was very small,   When my whole frame was but an ell in height; Sweetly, as I recall it, tears do fall,   And therefore I recall it with delight. I sported in my tender mother's arms,   And rode a-horseback on best father's knee; Alike were sorrows, pa**ions and alarms,   And gold, and Greek, and love, unknown to me, Then seemed to me this world far less in size,   Likewise it seemed to me less wicked far; Like points in heaven, I saw the stars arise,   And longed for wings that I might catch a star. I saw the moon behind the island fade,   And thought, "Oh, were I on that island there, I could find out of what the moon is made,   Find out how large it is, how round, how fair!" Wondering, I saw God's sun, through western skies,   Sink in the ocean's golden lap at night, And yet upon the morrow early rise,   And paint the eastern heaven with crimson light; And thought of God, the gracious Heavenly Father,   Who made me, and that lovely sun on high, And all those pearls of heaven thick-strung together,   Dropped, clustering, from his hand o'er all the sky. With childish reverence, my young lips did say   The prayer my pious mother taught to me: "O gentle God! oh, let me strive alway   Still to be wise, and good, and follow Thee!" So prayed I for my father and my mother,   And for my sister, and for all the town; The king I knew not, and the beggar-brother,   Who, bent with age, went, sighing, up and down. They perished, the blithe days of boyhood perished,   And all the gladness, all the peace I knew! Now have I but their memory, fondly cherished;—   God! may I never lose that too!