YOUTH

The poem I have read is named “YOUTH” form Samuel Ullman.

Samuel Ullman (April 13, 1840 – March 21, 1924) was an American businessman, poet, humanitarian, and religious leader. He is best known today for his poem "Youth," which was a favorite of General Douglas MacArthur. The poem was on the wall of MacArthur's office in Tokyo when he became Supreme Allied Commander in Japan.

Author background source：https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Ullman

The poem makes me feel positively. It was wrote when the author was 77 years old. I admire him very much, because I couldn’t imagine I can have the thought as him when I  live to be seventy-seven. Some people now especially in young generations  seem to feel that they are getting old easily and feeling tired increasingly after work. Live in this world is not easy, there are many pressures we have to absorb，many responsibility we have to do and  many rules we have to observe. Maybe those are reasons why some people think getting old and feeling tired, but those are human’s nature and understandable. The poem conveys the idea that we can change is our state of mind, the will, the imagination and emotion. Keeping young is not only in physiological changes like doing skin care and exercise, but also in our deep heart as the poem says “so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the Infinite, so long are you young.” Getting old is not only just about  growing old and developing decrepit facial appearance, but also depends on our innermost feelings like the author says  “When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at 20, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at 80”.

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 tempera-mental predominance of courage over timidity, of the

appetite for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of

60 more than a boy of 20. 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 spring back to dust.

Whether 60 or 16, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonder,

the unfailing childlike 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 the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at 20, but as long as

your aerials are up, to catch waves of optimism, there is hope you may die

young at 80.

poem source:  https://www.uab.edu/ullmanmuseum/