Famous Youthful Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Mountains

by Henry Kendall
RIFTED mountains, clad with forests, girded round by gleaming pines, 
Where the morning, like an angel, robed in golden splendour shines; 
Shimmering mountains, throwing downward on the slopes a mazy glare 
Where the noonday glory sails through gulfs of calm and glittering air; 
Stately mountains, high and hoary, piled with blocks of amber cloud, 
Where the fading twilight lingers, when...Read more of this...

Among School Children

by William Butler Yeats
 I

I walk through the long schoolroom questioning;
A kind old nun in a white hood replies;
The children learn to cipher and to sing,
To study reading-books and histories,
To cut and sew, be neat in everything
In the best modern way - the children's eyes
In momentary wonder stare upon
A sixty-year-old smiling public man.

 II

I dream of a Ledaean body, bent
Above a sinking fire....Read more of this...

The Consolation

by Anne Bronte
 Though bleak these woods and damp the ground
With fallen leaves so thickly strewn,
And cold the wind that wanders round
With wild and melancholy moan, 
There is a friendly roof I know
Might shield me from the wintry blast;
There is a fire whose ruddy glow
Will cheer me for my wanderings past. 

And so, though still where'er I roam
Cold stranger glances meet my...Read more of this...

The Night Dance

by Thomas Moore
 Strike the gay harp! see the moon is on high, 
And, as true to her beam as the tides of the ocean, 
Young hearts, when they feel the soft light of her eye, 
Obey the mute call, and heave into motion. 
Then, sound notes -- the gayest, the lightest, 
That ever took wing, when heaven look'd brightest 
Again! Again!...Read more of this...

Good Hours

by Robert Frost
 I had for my winter evening walk--
No one at all with whom to talk,
But I had the cottages in a row
Up to their shining eyes in snow.

And I thought I had the folk within:
I had the sound of a violin;
I had a glimpse through curtain laces
Of youthful forms and youthful faces.

I had such company outward bound.
I went till there...Read more of this...

Before The Cask of Wine

by Li Po
 The spring wind comes from the east and quickly passes,
Leaving faint ripples in the wine of the golden bowl.
The flowers fall, flake after flake, myriads together.

You, pretty girl, wine-flushed,
Your rosy face is rosier still.
How long may the peach and plum trees flower
By the green-painted house?
The fleeting light deceives man,
Brings soon the stumbling age.

Rise and dance
In the westering sun
While the...Read more of this...

Adieu to Belshanny

by William Allingham
 Adieu to Belashanny! where I was bred and born; 
Go where I may, I'll think of you, as sure as night and morn. 
The kindly spot, the friendly town, where every one is known, 
And not a face in all the place but partly seems my own; 
There's not a house or window, there's not a field or hill,...Read more of this...

A Pastoral Sung To The King

by Robert Herrick
 MONTANO, SILVIO, AND MIRTILLO, SHEPHERDS

MON. Bad are the times. SIL. And worse than they are we.
MON. Troth, bad are both; worse fruit, and ill the tree:
The feast of shepherds fail. SIL. None crowns the cup
Of wassail now, or sets the quintel up:
And he, who used to lead the country-round,
Youthful Mirtillo, here he comes, grief-drown'd.
AMBO. Let's cheer him up. SIL....Read more of this...

Hiawathas Wooing

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 "As unto the bow the cord is, 
So unto the man is woman; 
Though she bends him, she obeys him, 
Though she draws him, yet she follows; 
Useless each without the other!"
Thus the youthful Hiawatha 
Said within himself and pondered, 
Much perplexed by various feelings, 
Listless, longing, hoping, fearing, 
Dreaming still of Minnehaha, 
Of the lovely Laughing Water, 
In...Read more of this...

Madrigale IV

by Francesco Petrarch
MADRIGALE IV. Or vedi, Amor, che giovinetta donna. A PRAYER TO LOVE THAT HE WILL TAKE VENGEANCE ON THE SCORNFUL PRIDE OF LAURA.  Now, Love, at length behold a youthful fair,Who spurns thy rule, and, mocking all my care,'Mid two such foes, is safe and fancy free.Thou art well arm'd, 'mid flowers...Read more of this...

The Marriage of Edward Herbert Esquire and Mrs. Elizabeth Herbert

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 CUPID one day ask'd his Mother, 
When she meant that he shou'd Wed? 
You're too Young, my Boy, she said: 
Nor has Nature made another 
Fit to match with Cupid's Bed. 


Cupid then her Sight directed 
To a lately Wedded Pair; 
Where Himself the Match effected; 
They as Youthful, they as Fair. 


Having by Example carry'd 
This first Point...Read more of this...

The Beasts Confession

by Jonathan Swift
 To the Priest, on Observing how most Men mistake their own Talents
When beasts could speak (the learned say, 
They still can do so ev'ry day),
It seems, they had religion then,
As much as now we find in men.
It happen'd, when a plague broke out
(Which therefore made them more devout),
The king of brutes (to make it plain,
Of quadrupeds I only mean)
By...Read more of this...

Monet Refuses The Operation

by Lisel Mueller
 Doctor, you say there are no haloes
around the streetlights in Paris
and what I see is an aberration
caused by old age, an affliction.
I tell you it has taken me all my life
to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,
to soften and blur and finally banish
the edges you regret I don't see,
to learn that the line I called the...Read more of this...

Stanzas to a Friend

by Mary Darby Robinson
 AH! think no more that Life's delusive joys,
Can charm my thoughts from FRIENDSHIP'S dearer claim;
Or wound a heart, that scarce a wish employs,
For age to censure, or discretion blame. 

Tir'd of the world, my weary mind recoils
From splendid scenes, and transitory joys;
From fell Ambition's false and fruitless toils,
From hope that flatters, and from bliss that cloys. 

With THEE, above...Read more of this...

Sonnet LXIII

by William Shakespeare
 Against my love shall be, as I am now,
With Time's injurious hand crush'd and o'er-worn;
When hours have drain'd his blood and fill'd his brow
With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn
Hath travell'd on to age's steepy night,
And all those beauties whereof now he's king
Are vanishing or vanish'd out of sight,
Stealing away the treasure of his spring;
For such a time...Read more of this...

Sunshine through a Cobwebbed Window

by Amy Lowell
 What charm is yours, you faded old-world tapestries,
Of outworn, childish mysteries,
Vague pageants woven on a web of dream!
And we, pushing and fighting in the turbid stream
Of modern life, find solace in your tarnished broideries.
Old lichened halls, sun-shaded by huge cedar-trees,
The layered branches horizontal stretched, like Japanese
Dark-banded prints. Carven cathedrals, on a sky
Of faintest colour, where the gothic spires fly
And...Read more of this...

Milton

by Henry Van Dyke
 I 

Lover of beauty, walking on the height 
Of pure philosophy and tranquil song; 
Born to behold the visions that belong 
To those who dwell in melody and light; 
Milton, thou spirit delicate and bright!
What drew thee down to join the Roundhead throng
Of iron-sided warriors, rude and strong, 
Fighting for freedom in a world half night? 

Lover of Liberty...Read more of this...

You Can Be A Republican Im A Genocrat

by Ogden Nash
 Oh, "rorty" was a mid-Victorian word
Which meant "fine, splendid, jolly,"
And often to me it has reoccurred
In moments melancholy.
For instance, children, I think it rorty
To be with people over forty. 

I can't say which, come eventide,
More tedious I find;
Competing with the juvenile stride,
Or meeting the juvenile mind.
So I think it rorty, yes, and nifty,
To be with people over fifty. 

The...Read more of this...

To His Coy Mistress

by Andrew Marvell
  Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain.  I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of...Read more of this...

London

by William Blake
 I wander thro' each charter'd street.
Near where the charter'd Thames does flow
A mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man.
In every Infants cry of fear.
In every voice; in every ban.
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear

How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every blackening Church appalls.
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls

But most thro'...Read more of this...

THE ILIAD (excerpt)

by Homer
  Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring
  Of woes unnumber'd, heavenly goddess, sing!
  That wrath which hurl'd to Pluto's gloomy reign
  The souls of mighty chiefs untimely slain;
  Whose limbs unburied on the naked shore,
  Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore.(41)
  Since great Achilles and Atrides strove,
  Such was the sovereign...Read more of this...

I Saw Thy Form in Youthful Prime

by Thomas Moore
 I saw thy form in youthful prime, 
Nor thought that pale decay 
Would steal before the steps of Time, 
And waste its bloom away, Mary! 
Yet still thy features wore that light, 
Which fleets not with the breath; 
And life ne'er look'd more truly bright 
Than in thy smile of death, Mary! 

As streams that run o'er golden mines,...Read more of this...

Within the Circuit of This Plodding Life

by Henry David Thoreau
 Within the circuit of this plodding life
There enter moments of an azure hue,
Untarnished fair as is the violet
Or anemone, when the spring strews them
By some meandering rivulet, which make
The best philosophy untrue that aims
But to console man for his grievances
I have remembered when the winter came,
High in my chamber in the frosty nights,
When in the still light of the...Read more of this...

My playmates

by Eugene Field
 The wind comes whispering to me of the country green and cool--
Of redwing blackbirds chattering beside a reedy pool;
It brings me soothing fancies of the homestead on the hill,
And I hear the thrush's evening song and the robin's morning trill;
So I fall to thinking tenderly of those I used to know
Where the sassafras and snakeroot and checkerberries grow.

What has...Read more of this...

54. Man was made to Mourn: A Dirge

by Robert Burns
 WHEN chill November’s surly blast
 Made fields and forests bare,
One ev’ning, as I wander’d forth
 Along the banks of Ayr,
I spied a man, whose aged step
 Seem’d weary, worn with care;
His face furrow’d o’er with years,
 And hoary was his hair.


“Young stranger, whither wand’rest thou?”
 Began the rev’rend sage;
“Does thirst of wealth thy step constrain,
 Or youthful pleasure’s rage?
Or...Read more of this...

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