Poem: “Care-Free Youth” by Edgar A. Guest

A Heap o’ Livin’

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American Literature – American Poetry – Edgar A. Guest – Poems by Edgar A. Guest – A Heap o’ Livin’
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Care-Free Youth

The skies are blue and the sun is out and the
     grass is green and soft
  And the old charm’s back in the apple tree
     and it calls a boy aloft;
  And the same low voice that the old don’t hear,
     but the care-free youngsters do,
  Is calling them to the fields and streams and
     the joys that once I knew.
  And if youth be wild desire for play and care
     is the mark of men,
  Beneath the skin that Time has tanned I’m a
     madcap youngster then.

  Far richer than king with his crown of gold and
     his heavy weight of care
  Is the sunburned boy with his stone-bruised feet
     and his tousled shock of hair;
  For the king can hear but the cry of hate or the
     sickly sound of praise,
  And lost to him are the voices sweet that called
     in his boyhood days.
  Far better than ruler, with pomp and power
     and riches, is it to be
  The urchin gay in his tattered clothes that is
     climbing the apple tree.

  Oh, once I heard all the calls that come to the
     quick, glad ears of boys,
  And a certain spot on the river bank told me of
     its many joys,
  And certain fields and certain trees were loyal
     friends to me,
  And I knew the birds, and I owned a dog, and
     we both could hear and see.
  Oh, never from tongues of men have dropped
     such messages wholly glad
  As the things that live in the great outdoors
     once told to a little lad.

  And I’m sorry for him who cannot hear what
     the tall trees have to say,
  Who is deaf to the call of a running stream
     and the lanes that lead to play.
  The boy that shins up the faithful elm or
     sprawls on a river bank
  Is more richly blessed with the joys of life than
     any old man of rank.
  For youth is the golden time of life, and this
     battered old heart of mine
  Beats fast to the march of its old-time joys,
     when the sun begins to shine.

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My Paw Said So > > >

American Literature – American Poetry – Edgar A. Guest – Poems by Edgar A. Guest – A Heap o’ Livin’

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Care-Free Youth

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