A youth to whom was given
So much of earth, so much of heaven.
Just at the age 'twixt boy and youth,
When thought is speech, and speech is truth.
On his bold visage middle age
Had slightly press'd its signet sage,
Yet had not quench'd the open truth
And fiery vehemence of youth:
Forward and frolic glee was there,
The will to do, the soul to dare.
Thus aged men, full loth and slow,
The vanities of life forego,
And count their youthful follies o'er,
Till Memory lends her light no more.
Alas! they had been friends in youth;
But whispering tongues can poison truth,
And constancy live in realms above;
And life is thorny, and youth is vain,
And to be wroth with one we love
Doth work like madness in the brain.
Nought cared this body for wind or weather
When youth and I lived in 't together.
Those evening bells! those evening bells!
How many a tale their music tells
Of youth and home, and that sweet time
When last I heard their soothing chime!
But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!
Did ye not hear it?--No! 't was but the wind,
Or the car rattling o'er the stony street.
On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;
No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet
To chase the glowing hours with flying feet.
And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward; from a boy.
I wantoned with thy breakers,
. . . . .
And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane,--as I do here.
In my hot youth, when George the Third was king.
A long, long kiss,--a kiss of youth and love.
Woodman, spare that tree!
Touch not a single bough!
In youth it sheltered me,
And I 'll protect it now.
England may as well dam up the waters of the Nile with bulrushes as to fetter the step of Freedom, more proud and firm in this youthful land than where she treads the sequestered glens of Scotland, or couches herself among the magnificent mountains of Switzerland.
So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man,
When Duty whispers low, Thou must,
The youth replies, I can!
The disappointment of manhood succeeds to the delusion of youth: let us hope that the heritage of old age is not despair.
The Youth of a Nation are the trustees of Posterity.
Youth is a blunder; manhood a struggle; old age a regret.
Almost everything that is great has been done by youth.
In the lexicon of youth, which fate reserves
For a bright manhood, there is no such word
As "fail."
A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.
Oh would I were a boy again,
When life seemed formed of sunny years,
And all the heart then knew of pain
Was wept away in transient tears!
When every tale Hope whispered then,
My fancy deemed was only truth.
Oh, would that I could know again,
The happy visions of my youth.
Forth we went, a gallant band--
Youth, Love, Gold and Pleasure.
A good woman is a wondrous creature, cleaving to the right and to the good under all change: lovely in youthful comeliness, lovely all her life long in comeliness of heart.
Youth, with swift feet walks onward in the way;
The land of joy lies all before his eyes;
Age, stumbling, lingers slowly day by day,
Still looking back, for it behind him lies.
Have you found your life distasteful?
My life did, and does, smack sweet.
Was your youth of pleasure wasteful?
Mine I saved and hold complete.
Do your joys with age diminish?
When mine fail me, I'll complain.
Must in death your daylight finish?
My sun sets to rise again.