Fond Counsel

    O youth, beside thy silver-springing fountain,
    In sight and hearing of thy father's cot,
    These and the morning woods, the lonely mountain,
    These are thy peace, although thou know'st it not.
    Wander not yet where noon's unpitying glare
    Beats down the toilers in the city bare;
    Forsake not yet, not yet, the homely plot,
    O Youth, beside thy silver-springing fountain.

Henry John Newbolt

Sir Henry John Newbolt was an English poet and author, famous for his ballads such as 'Vitaï Lampada'. He graduated from Oxford and was called to the bar, but he is better remembered for his literary contributions than his legal career. Newbolt served as a government advisor on military and naval literature during World War I. He was knighted in 1915 for his services to literature. Newbolt's work often reflected themes of patriotism and duty.

Henry John Newbolt

Væ Victis

Henry John Newbolt, Simple Poetry

Laudabunt Alii

Henry John Newbolt, Simple Poetry

To a River in the South

Henry John Newbolt, Simple Poetry

Vitaï Lampada

Henry John Newbolt, 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 Fountain Of Youth

The fount the Spaniard sought in vain
Through all the land of flowers
Leaps glittering from the sandy plain
Our classic grove embowers;
Here youth, unchanging, blooms and smiles,
Here dwells eternal spring,
And warm from Hope's elysian isles
The winds their perfume bring.

Here every leaf is in the bud,
Each singing throat in tune,
And bright o'er evening's silver flood
Shines the young crescent moon.
What wonder Age forgets his staff
And lays his glasses down,
And gray-haired grandsires look and laugh
As when their locks were brown!

With ears grown dull and eyes grown dim
They greet the joyous day
That calls them to the fountain's brim
To wash their years away.
What change has clothed the ancient sire
In sudden youth? For, ...

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Youth

    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.

Henry John Newbolt

The Wanderer

    To Youth there comes a whisper out of the west:
        "O loiterer, hasten where there waits for thee
    A life to build, a love therein to nest,
        And a man's work, serving the age to be."

    Peace, peace awhile!    Before his tireless feet
        Hill beyond hill the road in sunlight goes;
    He breathes the breath of morning, clear and sweet,
        And his eyes love the high eternal snows.

Henry John Newbolt

Commemoration

I sat by the granite pillar, and sunlight fell
    Where the sunlight fell of old,
And the hour was the hour my heart remembered well,
    And the sermon rolled and rolled
As it used to roll when the place was still unhaunted,
And the strangest tale in the world was still untold.

And I knew that of all this rushing of urgent sound
    That I so clearly heard,
The green young forest of saplings clustered round
    Was heeding not one word:
Their heads were bowed in a still serried patience
Such as an angel's breath could never have stirred.

For some were already away to the hazardous pitch,
    Or lining the parapet wall,
And some were in glorious battle, or great and rich,
    Or throned in a college hall:
And among the rest was one like my own you...

Henry John Newbolt

Voices Of The Night - Prelude.

[Greek poem here--Euripides.]



Pleasant it was, when woods were green,
    And winds were soft and low,
To lie amid some sylvan scene.
Where, the long drooping boughs between,
Shadows dark and sunlight sheen
    Alternate come and go;

Or where the denser grove receives
    No sunlight from above,
But the dark foliage interweaves
In one unbroken roof of leaves,
Underneath whose sloping eaves
    The shadows hardly move.

Beneath some patriarchal tree
    I lay upon the ground;
His hoary arms uplifted he,
And all the broad leaves over me
Clapped their little hands in glee,
    With one continuous sound;--

A slumberous sound, a sound that brings
    The feelings of a dream,
As of innumerable wings,
A...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Return Of Youth.

My friend, thou sorrowest for thy golden prime,
For thy fair youthful years too swift of flight;
Thou musest, with wet eyes, upon the time
Of cheerful hopes that filled the world with light,
Years when thy heart was bold, thy hand was strong,
And quick the thought that moved thy tongue to speak,
And willing faith was thine, and scorn of wrong
Summoned the sudden crimson to thy cheek.

Thou lookest forward on the coming days,
Shuddering to feel their shadow o'er thee creep;
A path, thick-set with changes and decays,
Slopes downward to the place of common sleep;
And they who walked with thee in life's first stage,
Leave one by one thy side, and, waiting near,
Thou seest the sad companions of thy age,
Dull love of rest, and weariness and fear.

Yet grie...

William Cullen Bryant