To Youth
O Youth, sweet comrade Youth, wouldst thou be gone?Long have we dwelt together, thou and I;Together drunk of many an alien dawn,And plucked the fruit of many an alien sky.
Ah, fickle friend, must I, who yesterdayDreamed forwards to long, undimmed ecstasy,Henceforward dream, because thou wilt not stay,Backward to transient pleasure and to thee?
I give thee back thy false, ephemeral vow;But, O beloved comrade, ere we part,Upon my mournful eyelids and my browKiss me who hold thine image in my heart.
Words in this poem
- henceforward adv.
- From this time forward; henceforth.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To Youth is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Golden Threshold, with an introduction by Arthur Symons (Hyderabad, 1905; London, John Lane, 1905), Project Gutenberg ebook #680; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Sarojini Naidu, To Youth, in The Golden Threshold (1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #680, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/naidu-golden-threshold/to-youth.html, id L27509.
Form and metre
To Youth is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 80%).
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABAB goneA · iB · dawnA · skyB
- 2 ABAB yesterdayA · ecstasyB · stayA · theeB
- 3 ABAB vowA · partB · browA · heartB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| O Youth, sweet comrade Youth, wouldst thou be gone? | 10 | ···/······ |
| Long have we dwelt together, thou and I; | 10 | ····˘/˘··· |
| Together drunk of many an alien dawn, | 10 | ˘/˘··/·/˘· |
| And plucked the fruit of many an alien sky. | 10 | ·····/·/˘· |
| Ah, fickle friend, must I, who yesterday | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Dreamed forwards to long, undimmed ecstasy, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘˘ |
| Henceforward dream, because thou wilt not stay, | 11 | ··········· |
| Backward to transient pleasure and to thee? | 10 | /˘·/˘/˘··· |
| I give thee back thy false, ephemeral vow; | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| But, O beloved comrade, ere we part, | 10 | ··˘/˘/···· |
| Upon my mournful eyelids and my brow | 10 | ···/˘/···· |
| Kiss me who hold thine image in my heart. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.