Today perhaps we all agree that youth is spoilt, ill-disciplined and in search of constant, and instant, gratification. No matter how much we love them, our children, as they mature from child to youth, are pampered.

A century ago, and even further back, even the most privileged of youth was rarely indulged. In this volume we look at those years of youth through the eyes and pens of classic poets. They reveal times of hardship, of fear, of love and loss.

But youth is idealistic, ready to change the world....but usually ending up in the service of others, be it parents, or patrons, or employers, from a career in trade to the slaughter of war.

Life is difficult, a sometimes grim monotone and, it seems, only occasionally splashed with the colour of love, of beauty and ambition.

However, one thing we can be certain of though is that these verses speak not only from the head but from the heart.