Salute to Youth

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22402, 24 April 1936, Page 9 (Supplement)

Salute to Youth

Youth. astride of Pegasus, Flung to the ivindy skies, Beautiful but Stranger you To young uplifted eyesl For the young, they never knew you, And the old, alas, arc blind. But ice ivho arc not young nor old, Hail the youth we left behind When our ships came sailing home. Youth, you belong to us Who are neither old nor young, You are the very dreams we dreamed; You arc the songs w# sung; You are the light, the laughter In our eyes and on our lips; The fair, the following wind For all the ships We ever put to sea. Youth, you marched beside us On the bloody fields of France, And there at last toe left you Where the poppies blithely dance, Where the grass is coming up again And all the crops are gold . . . So, we build an altar to you, We tvho are not old, But once on a day icere young. Beneath these ycllou) hills, Here where the harbour'js blue, In the streets we trod together, We lift our eyes to you, And the sun shines out of a sudden. There's a snatch of song on the wind, For youth, sweet youth, remembered For youth we left behind When our ships came sailing home. (Copied) From Kathleen Odey. M.B.G. Hamlsh Fenn