A Sonnet To Youth Poem by Robert Winthrop

The old men looked at me, so young, and said,
'How wonderful if we could know again
The happy days and blissful hours when
Upon tomorrow's ev'ry hope we fed,
And faced the future never knowing dread
Of punishment which now we face as men
Who broke the words of God's commandments ten
And now must pay for wicked lives we led.'
But I, so young, could little solace find
In what they said; instead I envied them,
For they knew answers which my naive mind
Sought out as miners seek a shining gem.
On up the hill they neared the bridge of time,
And I, so young, had just begun to climb.