Explore "My Lost Youth" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Often I think of the beautiful town / That is seated by the sea; / Often in thought go up and down / The pleasant streets of that dear old town, / And my youth comes back to me. / And a verse of a Lapland song / Is haunting my memory still: / "A boy's will is the wind's will, / And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."
I can see the shadowy lines of its trees, / And catch, in sudden gleams, / The sheen of the far-surrounding seas, / And islands that were the Hersperides / Of all my boyish dreams. / And the burden of that old song, / It murmurs and whispers still: / "A boy's will is the wind's will, / And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."