Childhood holds a special magic that often gets overshadowed by adulthood’s responsibilities.
It was a time of wild adventures, laughter, and unfiltered joy.
Here are 10 engulfing poems that will transport you back to your childhood adventures and perhaps even rediscover the joy that still lives within you.
Let’s dive in!
My favorite poem about childhood memories
#1 “Childhood” by Charlotte Allen
Dear moments of childhood! how swiftly ye flew,
No effort of mine can restore thee;
In silence ye breathed an eternal adieu,
And with painful regret we deplore thee.
The still stream of time is rapidly flowing,
Our juvenile hours are past,
And youth’s gay dreams, with their warm tints
glowing,
But a few brief hours can last.
The illusions of life are fleeting away,
Our journey will soon be o’er,
The sand of existence from day to day,
Flows on to eternity’s shore.
On! on we are borne through the channel of Time,
To the deep futurity’s ocean;
To a haven of bliss, to a sunny clime,
To a world of joyful emotion.
This is a very nostalgic poem for me that’s why I chose it as my favorite.
This reminded me fo the simple times with simple joys and just how fleeting the time is, making me realize I should have cherished my childhood and youth more.
To go back and experience my childhood memories all over again is a wish for many, and it’s the same for me too.
9 more poems about childhood memories
#2 “Sweet Childhood’s Scenes” by Sarah Telford
Sweet childhood’s scenes, I love you still,
I love the little spot
Of rural scenery, where stands
My father’s humble cot.
And there are objects that I love,
With whom I grieve to part,
Which makes my native place so dear,
And binds it to my heart.
Oh! yes that spot has charms for me,
Unknown to stranger’s eye,
The scene of all my childish sports
Still near my heart shall lie.
Where’er I chance on earth to roam,
While this life’s wand’rings last,
Yet still my thoughts on thee shall turn,
In mem❜ry of the past.
Thy summits of delightful green,
By fancy’s eye thus view’d,
Shall gloomy thoughts at once dispel,
And furnish joys renew’d.
#3 “A Girl’s Song” by Thomas Moore
There’s a bower of roses by Bendemeer’s stream,
And the nightingale sings round it all the day long;
In the time of my childhood ’twas like a sweet dream
To sit in the roses and hear the bird’s song.
That bower and its music I never forget,
But oft when alone in the bloom of the year,
I think—is the nightingale singing there yet?
Are the roses still bright by the calm Bendemeer?
No, the roses soon withered that hung o’er the wave,
But some blossoms were gathered, while freshly they shone,
And a dew was distilled from their flowers, that gave
All the fragrance of summer, when summer was gone.
Thus memory draws from delight, ere it dies,
An essence that breathes of it many a year;
Thus bright to my soul, as ’twas then to my eyes,
Is that bower on the banks of the calm Bendemeer!
#4 “Childhood” by John Clare
What trifles touch our feelings, when we view
The simple scenes of Childhood’s early day,
Pausing on spots where gather’d blossoms grew,
Or favour’d seats of many a childish play;
Bush, dyke, or wood, where painted pooties lay,
Where oft we’ve crept and crept the shades among,
Where ivy hung old roots bemoss’d with grey,
Where nettles oft our infant fingers stung,
And tears would weep the gentle wounds away:–
Ah, gentle wounds indeed, I well may say,
To those sad Manhood’s tortur’d passage found,
Where naked Fate each day new pangs doth feel,
Clearing away the brambles that surround,
Inflicting tortures death can only heal.
#5 “Childhood Calls” by John Freeman
Come over, come over the deepening river,
Come over again the dark torrent of years,
Come over, come back where the green leaves quiver,
And the lilac still blooms and the grey sky clears.
Come, come back to the everlasting garden,
To that green heaven, and the blue heaven above.
Come back to the time when time brought no burden
And love was unconscious, knowing not love.
#6 From “Childhood Days” by Luke Woodard
O! happy childhood, days of joy!
When I was a free and romping boy.
I love to trace on memory’s page,
E’en now in years of riper age,
Those bygone scenes of early days!
I love to take a stroll around
Upon the old familiar ground,
Where in childhood’s years I played.
The brook in which I used to wade
Still flows beside the sycamore,
Beneath whose shade, in days of yore,
I angled for the nimble trout,
And threw the shining fellows out.
That brook had many charms for me,
Which none but childhood’s eye could see.
My bathing place at hour of noon,
In the sultry days of June;
And when by Winter’s frost congealed,
My place to sport on soles of steel.
#7 From “Youthful Joys” by John Milton Morse
When we think of the home of our childhood,
And the bright, sunny days of the past,
There is much we in memory cherish,
That was sweet, but too transient to last.
There were days that were brimful of pleasure,
There were hours of exquisite bliss,
When we had not a care for the morrow,
Or a grief-but would yield to a kiss.
There were joyous excursions in spring-time,
For the violets found near the wood;
For the wild flowers deep in the forest,
Where the beech and the tall maple stood.
Early flowers of spring we would gather,
Of the red, or the yellow, or white;
Running hither and yon for the beauties
Hailing each with a shout of delight!
There was hunting the corners, in meadows,
When the time for wild strawberries came ;
There was also the searching of hillsides,
For the berries were there just the same.
And when, later, the blackberries ripened,
We have taken our pails on our arms,
And have filled them with berries the finest,
From the newly cleared fields of the farms.
#8 “My Mother” by Luke Woodard
And when I think of childhood’s years.
I think of her whose lullabys,
Were music to my infant ears,
Who kissed away my baby tears,
Hushed on her breast my infant cries!
How bright those early years of mine!
But sorrow soon eclipsed my joy!
I sadly saw my mother pine,
And ere I reached the age of nine,
I was bereft -an orphan boy!
‘Twas when the spring was bright with bloom,
And music floated on the air,
Which, balmy was with sweet perfume
They bore her to the silent tomb,
And turned, and left her sleeping there!
And time, like a resistless tide ,
Has swept along, and we have laid
Since then, dear father, by her side,
And with the years, have multiplied
The sleepers in the realms of shade!
Now distant, grows the backward view,
And shorter grows the race before;
I look around, and those I knew
In childhood’s years are growing few
And I – I am a child no more!
#9 “The Old Familiar Faces” by Charles Lamb
I have had playmates, I have had companions,
In my days of childhood, in my joyful
school-days;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
I have been laughing, I have been carousing,
Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom
cronies;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
I loved a love once, fairest among women:
Closed are her doors on me ; I must not
see her;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
I have a friend, a kinder friend has no
man;
Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly;
Left him, to muse on the old familiar
faces.
Ghost-like I paced round the haunts of
my childhood ;
Earth seem’d a desert I was bound to
traverse
Seeking to find the old familiar faces,
Friend of my bosom, thou more than a
brother,
Why wert not thou born in my father’s
dwelling?
So might we talk of the old familiar
faces—
How some they have died, and some they
have left me,
And some are taken from me; all are departed, –
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
#10 “I Remember, I Remember” by Thomas Hood
I remember, I remember
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn.
He never came a wink too soon,
Nor brought too long a day;
But now I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away!
I remember, I remember
The roses, red and white,
The violets, and the lily-cups,—
Those flowers made of light!
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The laburnum on his birthday,—
The tree is living yet!
I remember, I remember
Where I was used to swing,
And thought the air must rush as fresh
To swallows on the wing;
My spirit flew in feathers then,
That is so heavy now,
And summer pools could hardly cool
The fever on my brow!
I remember, I remember
The fir-trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky.
It was a childish ignorance,
But now ’t is little joy
To know I ’m farther off from heaven
Than when I was a boy.