How a mind under such uncertain circumstances could retain so comparatively placid a vein is one of those marvels which find their explanation in the inherent trustfulness of the spirit of youth.
It is not often that the minds of men retain the perceptions of their younger days.
The marvel is not that one should thus retain, but that any should ever lose them Go the world over, and after you have put away the wonder and tenderness of youth what is there left? The few sprigs of green that sometimes invade the barrenness of your materialism, the few glimpses of summer which flash past the eye of the wintry soul, the half hours off during the long tedium of burrowing, these reveal to the hardened earth-seeker the universe which the youthful mind has with it always.
No fear and no favor; the open fields and the light upon the hills; morning, noon, night; stars, the bird-calls, the water's purl—these are the natural inheritance of the mind of the child.
Men call it poetic, those who are hardened fanciful.
So wild and unrecapturable is the fever of youth.
...of which the weary breast
Would still, albeit in vain, the heavy heart divest.
I remember back then we burned up the last of my teen's.
Yes the days when we couldn’t see an inch in front of us,
We laughed, we cried.
Those days with you, those moments are now in memories.
Franz, we are filthy rich and rotten spoilt.
But we are young and beautiful.
Remember when you were young
You shone like the Sun
Shine on, you crazy diamond!
Now there's a look in your eyes
Like black holes in the sky
Shine on, you crazy diamond!
You were caught on the cross fire
Of childhood and stardom
Blown on the steel breeze
Come on, you target for faraway laughter
Come on, you stranger, you legend, you martyr
And shine!
... and acknowledge the advantages of early hardship and discipline, and the consciousness of being born to struggle and endure.
Sing me a song of a lad that is gone,
Say, could that lad be I?
Merry of soul he sailed on a day
Over the sea to Skye.
Mull was astern, Rum on the port,
Eigg on the starboard bow;
Glory of youth glowed in his soul:
Where is that glory now?
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Give me again all that was there,
Give me the sun that shone!
Give me the eyes, give me the soul,
Give me the lad that's gone!
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Billow and breeze, islands and seas,
Mountains of rain and sun,
All that was good, all that was fair,
All that was me is gone.