The Power of Youth

I don’t often read poetry, but when I encountered Youth by Samuel Ullman a few weeks ago, it reverberated across my soul. Time humbles us all, and I’ve particularly been feeling at odds lately with my number of years and their reflection across the planes of my body. (Age is just a number, haha!) At different points in my life, I’ve struggled with the significance of certain birthdays. Am I where I should be (by now)? Do I feel my age? How do others judge my silhouette, my skin, my style? Of course I know these are all the wrong questions, of course I do. But sometimes you need (or at least I do) a fresh perspective to show you the right questions, the more productive, more joyful frame.

As I learned a little more about this poem (how am I just reading it now?!), I found the backstory almost as appealing as the stanzas themselves. You see, Youth was published when Ullman was 78 years young, as part of a collection put together by his loving family in 1918, just a few years before he died. He spent his life as so many of us do, in regular jobs, raising a family, watching his grandchildren grow. At the end of his life, he lived with his daughter and her family in a cozy room at the top of the house. Can you imagine the warmth of his wise presence?  

I hope whatever age you are (or feel) today, you’ll take a few minutes to read this short poem. Maybe you don’t need these words the same way I do, but still you might carry away something useful. As you read, notice how he uses words, tumbled to their essence like seaglass for a softened beauty with a gentle glow. Notice his imagery, and what feelings it evokes for you. Maybe we can all be a half-step more poetic in whatever we write next.

Youth

by Samuel Ullman

Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.

Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of sixty more than a boy of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.

Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.

Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing, child-like appetite of what’s next, and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the infinite, so long are you young.

When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at twenty, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch the waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at eighty.

Samuel Ullman with his grandchildren in 1911, surrounded by the vibrant potential of youth. He died in 1924.