And through all these poems there is a twitter and a hum, a sound as of the play of little children and their bird-like cries. The child rushes into the room, and the darkest brow, nay, even the guilty countenance, brightens; it interrupts the most serious converse with its questions, and the talk ends in a smile; it opens its young soul to every impression, and offers a kiss to strangers and to friends. "Let the children stay! do not drive them from the poet's study; let them laugh and sing and mingle their childish clamour with the chorus of spirit voices whilst he writes and dreams at his desk. Their breath will not disperse the gay bubbles of his dream. Do you think that I fear, when these bright heads pass before my eyes in the midst of my visions of blood and fire, that my verses will take flight like a flock of birds startled by playing children? No, indeed! No image is destroyed by them. The painted, chased flowers of the gay _Orientale_ expand more freely when they are near, the ballad grows more spirited, the winged lines of the ode mount with more ardent aspiration towards heaven." A sad event which happened in 1843 carried the poet in riper years back to these youthful days and that happy family circle. In February 1843 his eldest daughter married; in September she was accidentally drowned, from a sailing-boat on the Seine. Her husband, Charles Vacquerie, jumped into the water after her, and when his and all attempts to save her proved fruitless, he drowned himself. The series of poems in _Les Contemplations_ beginning with the verses, "Oh! je fus comme fou dans le premier moment!" ought to be read along with _Feuilles d'Automne_. In this series we come upon simple scenes exquisitely reproduced and full of sincere feeling: "Elle avait pris ce pli dans son âge enfantin De venir dans ma chambre un peu chaque matin; Je l'attendais ainsi qu'un rayon qu'on espère; Elle entrait et disait: 'Bonjour, mon petit père;' Prenait ma plume, ouvrait mes livres, s'asseyait Sur mon lit, dérangeait mes papiers et riait, Puis soudain s'en allait comme un oiseau qui passe. Alors je reprenais, la tête un peu moins lasse, Mon œuvre interrompue, et, tout en écrivant, Parmi mes manuscrits je rencontrais souvent Quelque arabesque folle et qu'elle avait tracée, Et mainte page blanche entre ses mains froissée Où, je ne sais comment, venaient mes plus doux vers. Elle aimait Dieu, les fleurs, les astres, les prés verts, Et c'était un esprit avant d'être une femme. Son regard reflétait la clarté de son âme. Elle me consultait sur tout à tous moments. Oh! que de soirs d'hiver radieux et charmants Passés à raisonner langue, histoire et grammaire, Mes quatre enfants groupés sur mes genoux, leur mère Tout près, quelques amis causant au coin du feu! J'appelais cette vie être content de peu!" Almost more beautiful is the following poem:--