In youth my wings were strong and tireless, But I did not know the mountains. In age I knew the mountains But my weary wings could not follow my vision— Genius is wisdom and youth.
Where this text comes from
First published in Spoon River Anthology (1916). First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1]
Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-20.
Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/edgar-lee-masters_spoon-river-anthology, spoon-river-anthology.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).
Earlier sources (2)
This poem as JSON or plain text . Line anchors #L1–#L5.
Cite this poem
Edgar Lee Masters (1868–1950).
“Alexander Throckmorton.” First published in Spoon River Anthology (1916).
Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/edgar-lee-masters/alexander-throckmorton/.
Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.
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