She Being Young

        The home of love is her blue eyes,
        Wherein all joy, all beauty lies,
        More sweet than hopes of paradise,
                She being young.

        Speak of her with a miser's praise;
        She craves no golden speech; her ways
        Wind through charmed nights and magic days,
                She being young.

        She is so far from pain and death,
        So warm her cheek, so sweet her breath
        Glad words are all the words she saith,
                She being young.

        Seeing her face, it seems not far
        To Troy's heroic field of war,
        To Troy and all great things that are,
                She being young.

John Charles McNeill

John Charles McNeill was a prominent American poet known for his works that vividly depicted the landscapes and spirit of North Carolina. Born on July 26, 1874, in Wagram, North Carolina, he won acclaim with his book 'Songs Merry and Sad,' which won the Patterson Cup in 1905. His poetry primarily reflects rural life and Southern traditions. Sadly, McNeill's promising career was cut short when he died on October 17, 1907, at the young age of 33.

John Charles McNeill

When I Go Home

John Charles McNeill, Simple Poetry

If I Could Glimpse Him

John Charles McNeill, Simple Poetry

The Bride

John Charles McNeill, Simple Poetry

September

John Charles McNeill, Simple Poetry

English

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Show me the noblest Youth of present time,
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October

        The thought of old, dear things is in thine eyes,
        O, month of memories!
        Musing on days thine heart hath sorrow of,
        Old joy, dead hope, dear love,

        I see thee stand where all thy sisters meet
        To cast down at thy feet
        The garnered largess of the fruitful year,
        And on thy cheek a tear.

        Thy glory flames in every blade and leaf
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John Charles McNeill

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,
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The Last Blossom

Though young no more, we still would dream
Of beauty's dear deluding wiles;
The leagues of life to graybeards seem
Shorter than boyhood's lingering miles.

Who knows a woman's wild caprice?
'It played with Goethe's silvered hair,
And many a Holy Father's "niece"
Has softly smoothed the papal chair.

When sixty bids us sigh in vain
To melt the heart of sweet sixteen,
We think upon those ladies twain
Who loved so well the tough old Dean.

We see the Patriarch's wintry face,
The maid of Egypt's dusky glow,
And dream that Youth and Age embrace,
As April violets fill with snow.

Tranced in her lord's Olympian smile
His lotus-loving Memphian lies, -
The musky daughter of the Nile,
With plaited hair and almond eyes.

Might...

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Youth.

Sweet empty sky of June without a stain,
    Faint, gray-blue dewy mists on far-off hills,
Warm, yellow sunlight flooding mead and plain,
    That each dark copse and hollow overfills;
    The rippling laugh of unseen, rain-fed rills,
Weeds delicate-flowered, white and pink and gold,
A murmur and a singing manifold.


The gray, austere old earth renews her youth
    With dew-lines, sunshine, gossamer, and haze.
How still she lies and dreams, and veils the truth,
    While all is fresh as in the early days!
    What simple things be these the soul to raise
To bounding joy, and make young pulses beat,
With nameless pleasure finding life so sweet.


On such a golden morning forth there floats,
    Between the soft earth and the softer sky,
In ...

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Youthful Fancies.

The morning of a gladsome day in spring
Had scarce its freshness brought to weary men,
When, o'er the meadows wet, a boy did sing,
And whistled o'er a tune, and carroll'd-it, again,
In youthful happiness unconscious then
Of aught which time might bring, of pain or woe,
But careless, pitching stones in bog or fen,
It seem'd as if he buried there, also,
All worldly cares, so blithely did he onward go.

And yet he was no careless, heedless boy,
Who thought but of the present time alone.
Of future years he thought, but with such joy,
His thoughts but pleasure gave, nor caused a groan
From out the breast that claim'd them as its own;
His thoughts were of the future, fair and bright,
And fresh from his unburden'd heart, alone,
Untarnish'd by the hard and glarin...

Thomas Frederick Young