Careful Words

youthful (adj.)

Thus aged men, full loth and slow,

The vanities of life forego,

And count their youthful follies o'er,

Till Memory lends her light no more.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): Rokeby. Canto v. Stanza 1.

Fly, like a youthful hart or roe,

Over the hills where spices grow.

Isaac Watts (1674-1748): Hymns and Spiritual Songs. Book i. Hymn 79.

All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players.

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.

And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad

Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,

Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard;

Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon lined,

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;

His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 7.

Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee

Jest and youthful Jollity,

Quips and Cranks and wanton Wiles,

Nods and Becks and wreathed Smiles.

John Milton (1608-1674): L'Allegro. Line 25.

Such sights as youthful poets dream

On summer eyes by haunted stream.

Then to the well-trod stage anon,

If Jonson's learned sock be on,

Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child,

Warble his native wood-notes wild.

John Milton (1608-1674): L'Allegro. Line 129.

Is she not more than painting can express,

Or youthful poets fancy when they love?

Nicholas Rowe (1673-1718): The Fair Penitent. Act iii. Sc. 1.

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy

Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be

Borne, like thy bubbles, onward; from a boy

I wantoned with thy breakers,

 .   .   .   .   .

And trusted to thy billows far and near,

And laid my hand upon thy mane,—as I do here.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 184.