1. Young Sea - written by Carl Sandburg
From Chicago Poems. Published in 1916. Read 3564 times on American Poems.

The sea is never still.
It pounds on the shore
Restless as a young heart,
Hunting.

The sea speaks
And only the stormy hearts
Know what it says:
It is the face
          of a rough mother speaking.

The sea is young.
One storm cleans all... (Read full poem)

So let me have the rouge again,
And comb my hair the curly way.
The poor young men, the dear young men
They'll all be here by noon today.

And I shall wear the blue, I think-
They beg to touch its rippled lace;
Or do they love me best in pink,
So... (Read full poem)

3. Beautiful Women. - written by Walt Whitman
From Leaves of Grass. Published in 1900. Read 11037 times on American Poems.

WOMEN sit, or move to and fro—some old, some young; 
The young are beautiful—but the old are more beautiful than the young.(Read full poem)

Being Young and Green, I said in love's despite:
Never in the world will I to living wight
Give over, air my mind
To anyone,
Hang out its ancient secrets in the strong wind
To be shredded and faded—

Oh, me, invaded
And sacked by the wind and... (Read full poem)

5. Child - written by Carl Sandburg
From Chicago Poems. Published in 1916. Read 4021 times on American Poems.

The young child, Christ, is straight and wise
And asks questions of the old men, questions
Found under running water for all children
And found under shadows thrown on still waters
By tall trees looking downward, old and gnarled.
Found to the... (Read full poem)

Did you never know, long ago, how much you loved me—
That your love would never lessen and never go?
You were young then, proud and fresh-hearted,
You were too young to know.

Fate is a wind, and red leaves fly before it
Far apart, far away in... (Read full poem)

7. Not all die early, dying young -- - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 3230 times on American Poems.

Not all die early, dying young --
Maturity of Fate
Is consummated equally
In Ages, or a Night --

A Hoary Boy, I've known to drop
Whole statured -- by the side
Of Junior of Fourscore -- 'twas Act
Not Period -- that died.(Read full poem)

the words have come and gone,
I sit ill.
the phone rings, the cats sleep.
Linda vacuums.
I am waiting to live,
waiting to die. 
I wish I could ring in some bravery.
it's a lousy fix
but the tree outside doesn't know:
I watch it moving with the... (Read full poem)

9. A Million Young Workmen, 1915 - written by Carl Sandburg
From Cornhuskers. Published in 1918. Read 1346 times on American Poems.

A MILLION young workmen straight and strong lay stiff on the grass and roads,
And the million are now under soil and their rottening flesh will in the years feed roots of blood-red roses.
Yes, this million of young workmen slaughtered one another... (Read full poem)

not much chance,
completely cut loose from
purpose,
he was a young man
riding a bus
through North Carolina
on the wat to somewhere
and it began to snow
and the bus stopped 
at a little cafe
in the hills
and the passengers 
entered.
he sat at the... (Read full poem)

11. suppose... (VIII) - written by e.e. cummings
Read 10994 times on American Poems.

suppose

Life is an old man carrying flowers on his head.

young death sits in a cafe
smiling, a pierce of money held between
his thumb and first finger

(i say "will he buy flowers" to you
and "Death is young
life wears velour... (Read full poem)

The small dogs look at the big dogs;
They observe unwieldy dimensions
And curious imperfections of odor.
Here is the formal male group:
The young men look upon their seniors,
They consider the elderly mind
And observe its inexplicable... (Read full poem)

13. What Fifty Said - written by Robert Frost
From West-Running Brook. Published in 1928. Read 11974 times on American Poems.

When I was young my teachers were the old.
I gave up fire for form till I was cold.
I suffered like a metal being cast.
I went to school to age to learn the past.

Now when I am old my teachers are the young.
What can't be molded must be... (Read full poem)

At ten AM the young housewife
moves about in negligee behind
the wooden walls of her husband's house.
I pass solitary in my car.

Then again she comes to the curb
to call the ice-man, fish-man, and stands
shy, uncorseted, tucking in
stray ends of... (Read full poem)

15. Turns And Movies: The Cornet - written by Conrad Aiken
Read 1231 times on American Poems.

When she came out, that white little Russian dancer, 
With her bright hair, and her eyes, so young, so young, 
He suddenly lost his leader, and all the players, 
And only heard an immortal music sung,—

Of dryads flashing in the green woods of... (Read full poem)

Death's the lover that I'd be taking;
Wild and fickle and fierce is he.
Small's his care if my heart be breaking-
Gay young Death would have none of me.

Hear them clack of my haste to greet him!
No one other my mouth had kissed.
I had dressed me in... (Read full poem)

17. you shall above all things... (22) - written by e.e. cummings
Read 18843 times on American Poems.

you shall above all things be glad and young
For if you're young,whatever life you wear
   
it will become you;and if you are glad
whatever's living will yourself become.
Girlboys may nothing more than boygirls need:
i can entirely her only love... (Read full poem)

ON the lips of the child Janet float changing dreams.
It is a thin spiral of blue smoke,
A morning campfire at a mountain lake.
 
On the lips of the child Janet,
Wisps of haze on ten miles of corn,
Young light blue calls to young light gold of... (Read full poem)

19. January 31 (The sky is crumbling...) - written by David Lehman
Read 797 times on American Poems.

The sky is crumbling into millions of paper dots
the wind blows in my face
so I duck into my favorite barber shop
and listen to Vivaldi and look in the mirror
reflecting the shopfront windows, Broadway
and 104th, and watch the dots blown by the... (Read full poem)

JIMMY WIMBLETON listened a first week in June.
Ditches along prairie roads of Northern Illinois
Filled the arch of night with young bullfrog songs.
Infinite mathematical metronomic croaks rose and spoke,
Rose and sang, rose in a choir of... (Read full poem)

21. Men - written by Maya Angelou
Read 102400 times on American Poems.

When I was young, I used to
Watch behind the curtains
As men walked up and down the street. Wino men, old men.
Young men sharp as mustard.
See them. Men are always
Going somewhere.
They knew I was there. Fifteen
Years old and starving for... (Read full poem)

1
DESPAIRING cries float ceaselessly toward me, day and night, 
The sad voice of Death—the call of my nearest lover, putting forth, alarmed,
    uncertain, 
This sea I am quickly to sail, come tell me, 
Come tell me where I am... (Read full poem)

23. I Love You - written by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Read 1948 times on American Poems.

I love your lips when they're wet with wine 
And red with a wild desire; 
I love your eyes when the lovelight lies 
Lit with a passionate fire. 
I love your arms when the warm white flesh 
Touches mine in a fond embrace; 
I love your hair... (Read full poem)

(For Robert Cortez Holliday)

If I should live in a forest
And sleep underneath a tree,
No grove of impudent saplings
Would make a home for me.
I'd go where the old oaks gather,
Serene and good and strong,
And they would not sigh and... (Read full poem)

25. Ripening - written by Wendell Berry
Read 1579 times on American Poems.

The longer we are together
the larger death grows around us.
How many we know by now
who are dead! We, who were young,
now count the cost of having been.
And yet as we know the dead
we grow familiar with the world.
We, who were young and... (Read full poem)