The best childhood poems selected by Dr Oliver Tearle

Previously, we’ve considered the best children’s poems which

we think everyone should read. In this post, we turn our
attention to the best poems about childhood – childhood, youth,
and that innocent time when our whole lives stretch ahead of us
like the beginning of a warm summer day full of promise (sigh)
… These poems range from the seventeenth century to
contemporary poetry – we hope you enjoy them.

1. Henry Vaughan, ‘The Retreat’.

Happy those early days! when I

Shined in my angel infancy.
Before I understood this place
Appointed for my second race,
Or taught my soul to fancy aught
But a white, celestial thought;
When yet I had not walked above
A mile or two from my first love,
And looking back, at that short space,
Could see a glimpse of His bright face;
When on some gilded cloud or flower
My gazing soul would dwell an hour,
And in those weaker glories spy
Some shadows of eternity …

So begins this long meditation on childhood. Henry Vaughan

(1622-95) was a Welsh Metaphysical Poet, although his name is
not quite so familiar as, say, Andrew Marvell. His poem ‘The
Retreat’ (sometimes the original spelling, ‘The Retreate’, is
preserved) is about the loss of heavenly innocence experienced
during childhood, and a desire to regain this lost state of ‘angel
infancy’