I am working on a speech, a Valedictorian speech i might add, and I would like to begin it with an excerpt from a poem. I have done much searching on my own, but so far i have failed to find anything that suits my needs.

Because i am speaking at an event that both looks back to the past and ahead to the future, a poem that does the same would be ideal.

Thanks for any help (I did consider Hughes' A Dream Deferred, but i dont think it will fit all that well. THanks again.

Hello,

I'm studying romantic poetry and your message made me think about Coleridge's "Frost at midnight". In this poem he thinks about his own past and hopes for the future of his son. It's a long poem but you can read it in www.bartebly.com, for example.
If you need help, don't hesitate to ask!

Some day the soft Ideal that we wooed
Confronts us fiercely, foe-beset, pursued,
And cries reproachful: "Was it, then, my praise,
And not myself was loved? Prove now thy truth;
I claim of thee the promise of thy youth ...
-James Russell Lowell


The pun on 'youth' is especially delicious.