Poetry Revisited: Youth by Sir Henry Newbolt

Youth

(from Poems. New and Old: 1912)

His song of dawn outsoars the joyful bird,
Swift on the weary road his footfall comes;
The dusty air that by his stride is stirred
Beats with a buoyant march of fairy drums.
"Awake, O Earth! thine ancient slumber break;
To the new day, O slumbrous Earth, awake!"

Yet long ago that merry march began,
His feet are older than the path they tread;
His music is the morning-song of man,
His stride the stride of all the valiant dead;
His youngest hopes are memories, and his eyes
Deep with the old, old dream that never dies.

Sir Henry John Newbolt
(1862-1938)