‘To An Athlete Dying Young’ - A.E Housman (1896)
The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.
To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.
Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.
Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:
Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.
So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.
And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl’s.
John F. Kennedy, Jr. (22) at his graduating from Brown University in 1983 with a bachelor’s degree in History. It was a big media happening.
caroline whispers something to her daddy as john-john lead the troops to the candy store
John John learns to ride a horse, summer of 1963.
Young John Kennedy Jr. rides his bicycle near his summer home in Hyannis Port, on his way to the beach on September 4, 1972.
Jackie with John John on the porch of their Georgetown home, 3017 N Street, June 17, 1964
“Can anyone understand how it is to have lived in the White House and then, suddenly, to be living alone as the president’s widow? There’s something so final about it. And the children. The world is pouring terrible adoration at the feet of my children and I fear for them. How can I bring them up normally? We would never have named John after his father if we had known…”
—Jacqueline Kennedy
JFK adored his energetic little namesake.
Jackie with John John on the porch of their Georgetown home, 3017 N Street, June 17, 1964
“Can anyone understand how it is to have lived in the White House and then, suddenly, to be living alone as the president’s widow? There’s something so final about it. And the children. The world is pouring terrible adoration at the feet of my children and I fear for them. How can I bring them up normally? We would never have named John after his father if we had known…”
—Jacqueline Kennedy
Young John Kennedy Jr. rides his bicycle near his summer home in Hyannis Port, on his way to the beach on September 4, 1972.
