Was the author successful getting the tone of the poem across to you, the reader? What are the metaphors and Symbols in this poem? Whats it about?...

In this poem by Longfellow, "the children's hour" is that
time:

Between
the dark and the daylight,
   When the night is beginning to
lower

When it is time for
children to go to bed. The children are getting ready for bed -- their father hears them
getting ready in the room above, and soon they are scrambling onto his lap for a bedtime
story.

Yet I
know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning together
  
To take me by surprise.

The
children are planning to coerce their father into telling them a bedtime story. The the
Bishop of Bingen is a character in a story that the father has no doubt told to the
children before. It is probably a tale of romance, of knights and princesses that need
to be rescued from high "turrets" and "fortresses". The castle imagery is a metaphor for
the fairy-tale stores the father has told and the children enjoy. "Blue eyed banditi" is
a metaphor for the children - bandits with blue eyes, that are forcing him to tell them
a story, but they are no match for him, because he loves them and wants to tell them a
story anyway.

He continues with the castle imagery to
describe his love for the children"

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I have you fast in my fortress,
   And
will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon
   In the
round-tower of my heart.

His
fortress is his armchair, or his study, and while they are there, he can love them, tell
them stories, and keep them in his heart.

Longfellow had
five children and was known to be a tender and loving father. I think this comes across
in the poem, and it is succesful, don't you agree?