Famous Youth Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Youth poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous youth poems. These examples illustrate what a famous youth poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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The Star of Youth

by Fannie Isabelle Sherrick
The sun sinks down in the crimson west,
  Oh, a beautiful sun is he;
With his purple robes and his crown of gold
  And his feet dipped in the sea.
Along the shore where the sea-weeds lie
  Like threads of her tangled hair,
Naomi stands in the amber glow
  Of the mystical sunset air.
Her hair is brown, with a...Read more of this...

In Youth

by William Lisle Bowles
 Milton, our noblest poet, in the grace 
Of youth, in those fair eyes and clustering hair, 
That brow untouched by one faint line of care, 
To mar its openness, we seem to trace 
The front of the first lord of the human race, 
Mid thine own Paradise portrayed so fair, 
Ere Sin or Sorrow scathed it: such the air...Read more of this...

Not Youth Pertains to Me

by Walt Whitman
 NOT youth pertains to me, 
Nor delicatesse—I cannot beguile the time with talk; 
Awkward in the parlor, neither a dancer nor elegant; 
In the learn’d coterie sitting constrain’d and still—for learning. inures
 not to
 me; 
Beauty, knowledge, inure not to me—yet there are two or three things inure to me;
I have nourish’d the wounded, and sooth’d many a dying...Read more of this...

Youth and Love

by Amy Levy
 What does youth know of love?
Little enough, I trow!
He plucks the myrtle for his brow,
For his forehead the rose.
Nay, but of love
It is not youth who knows....Read more of this...

Sonnet 96: Some say thy fault is youth some wantonness

by William Shakespeare
 Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness;
Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport;
Both grace and faults are loved of more and less;
Thou mak'st faults graces that to thee resort.
As on the finger of a thronèd queen,
The basest jewel will be well esteemed.
So are those errors that in thee are seen
To truths translated, and for true things...Read more of this...

Youth

by Adelaide Crapsey
But me
They cannot touch,
Old Age and death…the strange
And ignominious end of old
Dead folk!...Read more of this...

The Funeral of Youth: Threnody

by Rupert Brooke
 The Day that Youth had died,
There came to his grave-side, 
In decent mourning, from the country’s ends, 
Those scatter’d friends 
Who had lived the boon companions of his prime,
And laughed with him and sung with him and wasted, 
In feast and wine and many-crown’d carouse, 
The days and nights and dawnings of the time 
When Youth kept open house,...Read more of this...

Pleading for and with Youth

by William Cowper
 Sin has undone our wretched race;
But Jesus has restored,
And brought the sinner face to face
With his forgiving Lord.

This we repeat from year to year
And press upon our youth;
Lord, give them an attentive ear,
Lord, save them by Thy truth!

Blessings upon the rising race!
Make this a happy hour,
According to Thy richest grace,
And thine Almighty power.

We feel for your unhappy state
(May you...Read more of this...

Picture Of A 23-Year-Old Youth Painted By His Friend Of The Same Age An Amature

by Constantine P Cavafy
 He finished the painting yesterday noon. Now
he studies it in detail. He has painted him in a
gray unbuttoned coat, a deep gray; without
any vest or any tie. With a rose-colored shirt;
open at the collar, so something might be seen
also of the beauty of his chest, of his neck.
The right temple is almost entirely
covered by his hair, his beautiful hair
(parted...Read more of this...

Since to-day is my turn for youth, I intend to pass it

by Omar Khayyam
Since to-day is my turn for youth, I intend to pass it
in drinking wine, for that is my pleasure. Begin not to
talk of its bitterness, to speak ill of this delicious juice,
for it is agreeable, and is only bitter because it enforces
the bitterness of my life.
285...Read more of this...

The limitations of youth

by Eugene Field
 I'd like to be a cowboy an' ride a fiery hoss
Way out into the big an' boundless west;
I'd kill the bears an' catamounts an' wolves I come across,
An' I'd pluck the bal' head eagle from his nest!
With my pistols at my side,
I would roam the prarers wide,
An' to scalp the savage Injun in his wigwam would I ride--
If I...Read more of this...

Invocation to Youth

by Laurence Binyon
 COME then, as ever, like the wind at morning! 
 Joyous, O Youth, in the aged world renew 
Freshness to feel the eternities around it, 
 Rain, stars and clouds, light and the sacred dew. 
 The strong sun shines above thee: 
 That strength, that radiance bring! 
 If Winter come to Winter, 
 When shall men hope...Read more of this...

Here is the Dawn; arise, O beardless youth, and quickly

by Omar Khayyam
Here is the Dawn; arise, O beardless youth, and quickly
fill this crystal cup with ruby wine, for [later], you could
seek long time ere finding such a moment of existence as
is lent us in this world of nothingness....Read more of this...

Youth And Beauty

by William Carlos (WCW) Williams
 I bought a dishmop— 
having no daughter— 
for they had twisted 
fine ribbons of shining copper 
about white twine 
and made a tousled head
of it, fastened it 
upon a turned ash stick
slender at the neck 
straight, tall— 
when tied upright 
on the brass wallbracket
to be a light for me 
and naked 
as a girl should seem 
to her father....Read more of this...

What slender youth (QUIS MULTA GRACILIS)

by Horace
     What slender youth, besprinkled with perfume,
         Courts you on roses in some grotto's shade?
       Fair Pyrrha, say, for whom
         Your yellow hair you braid,
     So trim, so simple! Ah!...Read more of this...

Funeral Of Youth The: Threnody

by Rupert Brooke
 The day that YOUTH had died,
There came to his grave-side,
In decent mourning, from the country's ends,
Those scatter'd friends
Who had lived the boon companions of his prime,
And laughed with him and sung with him and wasted,
In feast and wine and many-crown'd carouse,
The days and nights and dawnings of the time
When YOUTH kept open house,
Nor left untasted
Aught of his high emprise...Read more of this...

The Youth And The Millstream

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 [This sweet Ballad, and the one entitled The 
Maid of the Mill's Repentance, were written on the occasion of a 
visit paid by Goethe to Switzerland. The Maid of the Mill's Treachery, 
to which the latter forms the sequel, was not written till the following 
year.]

YOUTH.

SAY, sparkling streamlet, whither thou

Art 
going!
With joyous mien thy waters now

Are 
flowing.
Why seek the...Read more of this...

Y was a Youth who kicked

by Edward Lear
Y  was a Youth, who kickedAnd screamed and cried like mad; Papa he said, "Your conduct isAbominably bad!" ...Read more of this...

A youth in apparel that glittered

by Stephen Crane
 A youth in apparel that glittered
Went to walk in a grim forest.
There he met an assassin
Attired all in garb of old days;
He, scowling through the thickets,
And dagger poised quivering,
Rushed upon the youth.
"Sir," said this latter,
"I am enchanted, believe me,
To die, thus,
In this medieval fashion,
According to the best legends;
Ah, what joy!"
Then took he the wound, smiling,
And died, content....Read more of this...

To Youth

by Robert Herrick
 Drink wine, and live here blitheful while ye may;
The morrow's life too late is; Live to-day....Read more of this...

Youth is the time to pay court to the vine,

by Omar Khayyam
Youth is the time to pay court to the vine,
To quaff the cup, with revellers to recline;
A flood of water once laid waste the earth,
Hence learn to lay you waste with floods of wine....Read more of this...

Youth and Art

by Robert Browning
 1 It once might have been, once only:
2 We lodged in a street together,
3 You, a sparrow on the housetop lonely,
4 I, a lone she-bird of his feather.

5 Your trade was with sticks and clay,
6 You thumbed, thrust, patted and polished,
7 Then laughed 'They will see some day
8 Smith made, and Gibson demolished.'

9 My business was song, song, song;
10...Read more of this...

To Music To Becalm A Sweet Sick Youth

by Robert Herrick
 Charms, that call down the moon from out her sphere,
On this sick youth work your enchantments here!
Bind up his senses with your numbers, so
As to entrance his pain, or cure his woe.
Fall gently, gently, and a-while him keep
Lost in the civil wilderness of sleep:
That done, then let him, dispossess'd of pain,
Like to a slumbering bride, awake again....Read more of this...

Now is the volume of my youth outworn,

by Omar Khayyam
Now is the volume of my youth outworn,
And all my spring-tide blossoms rent and torn.
Ah, bird of youth! I marked not when you came,
Nor when you fled, and left me thus forlorn....Read more of this...

Age and Youth

by George William Russell
 WE have left our youth behind:
 Earth is in its baby years:
Void of wisdom cries the wind,
 And the sunlight knows no tears.


When shall twilight feel the awe,
 All the rapt thought of the sage,
And the lips of wind give law
 Drawn from out their lore of age?


When shall earth begin to burn
 With such love as thrills my...Read more of this...

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