Lifechanging Poem

Reposted from ReviewingYourLife.com: When I was young and still had a lifetime of, "when I was young," stories ahead of me, I noticed an old, brown book with a deteriorated binding, decrepit pages and to my endless delight, chapter upon chapter of poetry. Obscure, reputed and the line that lies therein between, it was a treasure worth one thousand times its weight in wonder. I opened to a random page and found a poem that after my first read, became the poem that I liked more than any short text in the world. Within a short minute of intent, fascinated repetition, I had it memorised. I still do and I most likely always will. I carried it with me always from that day (it fell out of the book when I opened to it) until the binder in which I had carefully secured it, was stolen years later, along with my precious page. When my life is going well, when it is going poorly and when I just need to be reminded that life is there to live, I think back to this:

When all the world is young, lad, And all the trees are green; And every goose a swan, lad, And every lass a queen; Then hey for boot and horse, lad, And round the world away! Young blood must have its course, lad, And every dog his day. When all the world is old, lad, And all the trees are brown; And all the sport is stale, lad, And all the wheels run down; Creep home, and take your place there, The spent and maimed among; God grant you find one face there, You loved when all was young.

-Charles Kingsley (1819-1875)