The Return of the Children by Rudyard Kipling

Neither the harps nor the crowns amused, nor the cherubs' dove-winged races -- / Holding hands forlornly the Children wandered beneath the Dome, / Plucking the splendid robes of the passers-by, and with pitiful faces / Begging what Princes and Powers refused: -- 'Ah, please will you let us go home?'

Over the jewelled floor, nigh weeping, ran to them Mary the Mother, / Kneeled and caressed and made promise with kisses, and drew them along to the gateway -- / Yea, the all-iron unbribeable Door which Peter must guard and none other. / Straightway She took the Keys from his keeping, and opened and freed them straightway.

Then, to Her Son, Who had seen and smiled, She said: 'On the night that I bore Thee, / What didst Thou care for a love beyond mine or a heaven that was not my arm? / Didst Thou push from the nipple, O Child, to hear the angels adore Thee? / When we two lay in the breath of the kine? ' And He said: -- 'Thou hast done no harm.'

So through the Void the Children ran homeward merrily hand in hand, / Looking neither to left nor right where the breathless Heavens stood still. / And the Guards of the Void resheathed their swords, for they heard the Command: / 'Shall I that have suffered the children to come to Me hold them against their will? '