Print after a portrait by Thomas Buchanan Read – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s daughters Alice Mary (top), Edith (left) and Anne Allegra (right) (c.1860) – from the New York Public Library’s digital collections

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (born February 27th, 1807 — died March 24th, 1882) is an American poet. One of his most famous poems is The Children’s Hour, first published in the September 1860 edition of The Atlantic Monthly. The poet’s three daughters “grave Alice”, “laughing Allegra”, and “Edith with golden hair” assault him by surprise; then “They almost devour me with kisses, / Their arms about me entwine,” and like a besieged citadel, he must surrender. CONTINUE READING…