You will look young when you feel young, but to simply feel that you are young will not always cause you to feel young. The real feeling of youth comes when we actually think in the consciousness of youth and give the realization of the now to every thought.
O youth! youth! you go your way heedless, uncaring _ as if you owned all the treasures of the world; even grief elates you, even sorrow sits well upon your brow. You are self-confident and insolent and you say, 'I alone am alive _ behold!' even while your own days fly past and vanish without trace and without number, and everything within you melts away like wax in the sun .. like snow .. and perhaps the whole secret of your enchantment lies not, indeed, in your power to do whatever you may will, but in your power to think that there is nothing you will not do: it is this that you scatter to the winds _ gifts which you could never have used to any other purpose. Each of us feels most deeply convinced that he has been too prodigal of his gifts _ that he has a right to cry, 'Oh, what could I not have done, if only I had not wasted my time.
First Love
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O youth! youth! you go your way heedless, uncaring _ as if you owned all the treasures of the world; even grief elates you, even sorrow sits well upon your brow. You are self-confident and insolent and you say, 'I alone am alive _ behold!' even while your own days fly past and vanish without trace and without number, and everything within you melts away like wax in the sun .. like snow .. and perhaps the whole secret of your enchantment lies not, indeed, in your power to do whatever you may will, but in your power to think that there is nothing you will not do: it is this that you scatter to the winds _ gifts which you could never have used to any other purpose. Each of us feels most deeply convinced that he has been too prodigal of his gifts _ that he has a right to cry, 'Oh, what could I not have done, if only I had not wasted my time.
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Something must be radically wrong with a culture and a civilisation when its youth begins to desert it. Youth is the natural time for revolt, for experiment, for a generous idealism that is eager for action. Any civilisation which has the wisdom of self-preservation will allow a certain margin of freedom for the expression of this youthful mood. But the plain, unpalatable fact is that in America today that margin of freedom has been reduced to the vanishing point. Rebellious youth is not wanted here. In our environment there is nothing to challenge our young men; there is no flexibility, no colour, no possibility for adventure, no chance to shape events more generously than is permitted under the rules of highly organised looting. All our institutional life combines for the common purpose of blackjacking our youth into the acceptance of the status quo; and not acceptance of it merely, but rather its glorification.
We screamed this primeval scream built on a base of freedom, raised from beauty of a dying breed, and threw our heads back to laugh or cry, I'm not entirely sure which. But the scream shook the golden sunset, bringing it to its knees.
Sadly as some old mediaeval knightGazed at the arms he could no longer wield,The sword two-handed and the shining shieldSuspended in the hall, and full in sight,While secret longings for the lost delightOf tourney or adventure in the fieldCame over him, and tears but half concealedTrembled and fell upon his beard of white,So I behold these books upon their shelf,My ornaments and arms of other days;Not wholly useless, though no longer used,For they remind me of my other self,Younger and stronger, and the pleasant waysIn which I walked, now clouded and confused.