Paraphrase/Summary?

Dear teachers,

Could you please edit the text below, and also tell me how you see it (i.e., as a paraphrase or as a summary of the poem followed by it)? It's always been a very difficult task for me to distinguish between paraphrase and summary. I've written it. But I'm not sure whether I have paraphrased the poem or just summarized it.

Thanks in anticipation.



With great regards,

Hungry



Paraphrase/Summary?

In the beautiful poem, the poet records his feelings about children. He says when he sees the children at play; he forgets the questions that perplex him. He believes that children enable us to see the world clearly, and enjoy our lives. They reflect the rays of life, and their thoughts are like singing birds. The poet then contrasts his feelings and thoughts with the children’s, and says that children always seem to be excited and carefree; they symbolize youth, growth, and liveliness, while he is in the Autumn of his life, and his thoughts are full of worries. He then asks a question that what life would be like without the children and their innocence, and answers it himself that our past would be a desert, and the future looming death. He says that children are as important to the world as leaves to a forest. He also takes into account that grown-ups are weighed down with learning, business, finances, rules, politics etc. while children are playful, happy, and don't judge others. He finally likens the children to ballads and poems, and concludes that they are better.



Children

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)

COME to me, O ye children!

For I hear you at your play,

And the questions that perplexed me

Have vanished quite away.

Ye open the eastern windows,

That look towards the sun,

Where thoughts are singing swallows

And the brooks of morning run.

In your hearts are the birds and the sunshine,

In your thoughts the brooklet’s flow,

But in mine is the wind of Autumn

And the first fall of the snow.

Ah! what would the world be to us

If the children were no more?

We should dread the desert behind us

Worse than the dark before.

What the leaves are to the forest,

With light and air for food,

Ere their sweet and tender juices

Have been hardened into wood,

That to the world are children;

Through them it feels the glow

Of a brighter and sunnier climate

Than reaches the trunks below.

Come to me, O ye children!

And whisper in my ear

What the birds and the winds are singing

In your sunny atmosphere.

For what are all our contrivings,

And the wisdom of our books,

When compared with your caresses,

And the gladness of your looks?

Ye are better than all the ballads

That ever were sung or said;

For ye are living poems,

And all the rest are dead.