A Generation (1917)

    There was a time that's gone
    And will not come again,
    We knew it was a pleasant time,
    How good we never dreamed.

    When, for a whimsy's sake,
    We'd even play with pain,
    For everything awaited us
    And life immortal seemed.

    It seemed unending then
    To forward-looking eyes,
    No thought of what postponement meant
    Hung dark across our mirth;

    We had years and strength enough
    For any enterprise,
    Our numerous companionship
    Were heirs to all the earth.

    But now all memory
    Is one ironic truth,
    We look like strangers at the boys
    We were so long ago;

    For half of us are dead,
    And half have lost their youth,
    And our hearts are scarred by many griefs,
    That only age should know.

John Collings Squire, Sir

John Collings Squire, also known as Sir John Squire, was an influential British poet, writer, historian, and influential literary editor of the early 20th century. He is best known for his role as editor of the London Mercury, a powerful literary journal of the time. Squire was a leading figure in the Georgian poetry movement, which sought to return English poetry to its traditional form and diction.

John Collings Squire, Sir

Spleen - (Twelve Translations From Charles Baudelaire)

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

At Night

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

A Day

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

Wars And Rumours, 1920

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Reunion

The gulf of seven and fifty years
We stretch our welcoming hands across;
The distance but a pebble's toss
Between us and our youth appears.

For in life's school we linger on
The remnant of a once full list;
Conning our lessons, undismissed,
With faces to the setting sun.

And some have gone the unknown way,
And some await the call to rest;
Who knoweth whether it is best
For those who went or those who stay?

And yet despite of loss and ill,
If faith and love and hope remain,
Our length of days is not in vain,
And life is well worth living still.

Still to a gracious Providence
The thanks of grateful hearts are due,
For blessings when our lives were new,
For all the good vouchsafed us since.

The pain that spared us...

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The Old Shepherd

    'T is pleasant to bear recollections in mind
    Of joys that time hurries away--
    To look back on smiles that have passed like the wind,
    And compare them with frowns of to-day.
    'T was the constant delight of Old Robin, forsooth,
    On the past with clear vision to dwell--
    To recount the fond loves and the raptures of youth,
    And tales of lost pleasures to tell.

    "'T is now many years," like a child, he would say,
    "Since I joined in the sports of the green--
    Since I tied up the flowers for the garland of May,
    And danced with the holiday queen.
    My memory looks backward in sorrowful pride,
    And I think, till my eyes dim with tears,
    Of the past, where my happiness withered and died,
    And the present dull, desol...

John Clare

Youth and Age

Verse, a breeze 'mid blossoms straying,
Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee -
Both were mine! Life went a-maying
With Nature, Hope, and Poesy,
When I was young!
When I was young? - Ah, woeful When!
Ah! for the change 'twixt Now and Then!
This breathing house not built with hands,
This body that does me grievous wrong,
O'er aery cliffs and glittering sands
How lightly then it flashed along,
Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore,
On winding lakes and rivers wide,
That ask no aid of sail or oar,
That fear no spite of wind or tide!
Nought cared this body for wind or weather
When Youth and I lived in't together.

Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like;
Friendship is a sheltering tree;
O the joys! that came down shower-like,
Of Friendshi...

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Winter Nightfall

    The old yellow stucco
    Of the time of the Regent
    Is flaking and peeling:
    The rows of square windows
    In the straight yellow building
    Are empty and still;
    And the dusty dark evergreens
    Guarding the wicket
    Are draped with wet cobwebs,
    And above this poor wilderness
    Toneless and sombre
    Is the flat of the hill.

    They said that a colonel
    Who long ago died here
    Was the last one to live here:
    An old retired colonel,
    Some Fraser or Murray,
    I don't know his name;
    Death came here and summoned him,
    And the shells of him vanished
    Beyond all speculation;
    And silence resumed here,
    Silence and emptiness,
    And nobody came.

    Was it ...

John Collings Squire, Sir

Backward Turn, Oh! Recollection.

Backward turn, oh! recollection!
Far, far back to childhoods' days;
To those treasures of affection,
'Round which loving memory plays
Show to me the loving faces
Of my parents, now no more, -
Fill again the vacant places
With the images of yore.

Conjure up the home where comfort
Seemed to make its cosy nest;
Where the stranger's only passport,
Was the need of food and rest.
Show the schoolhouse where with others,
I engaged in mental strife,
And the playground, where as brothers
Running, jumping, full of life.

Now I see the lovely maiden,
That my young heart captive led;
Like a sylph, with gold curls laden,
And her lips of cherry red.
Now fond voices seem to echo,
Tones as when I heard them last;
And my heart sighs sadl...

John Hartley

Memories Of Schooldays.

There are mem'ries glad of the old school-house,
Which throng around me still;
And voices spoke in my youthful days,
My ears with music fill.

Those youthful voices I seem to hear,
With their gladsome, joyous tone,
And joy and hope they bring to me,
When I am all alone.

I think of the joys of that time long past,
Of its boyish hopes and fears,
And 'tis partly joy, and partly pain,
That wets my eyes with tears.

For 'tis joy I feel, when I seem to stand,
Where I stood long years ago,
And when I think that cannot be,
My heart is fill'd with woe.

My old school mates are scatter'd far,
And some are with the dead,
And my old class mates have wander'd, too,
To seek for fame, or bread.

And those who still are near my ho...

Thomas Frederick Young