I`ve just re-read two poems on children by Francis Thompson...here are two short extracts:

The poppy

The hills look over on the South
And southward dreams the sea
And with the sea-breeze,hand in hand
Came innocence and she.

TO MONICA AFTER NINE YEARS

In the land of flag lillies
Where burst in golden clangour
The joy-bells of the broom
You were full of willy-nillies,
Pets and bee-like angers.
Flaming like a dusky poppy
In a wrathful bloom.

The poet is lamenting (in the same girl) the passing of a precious quality we all call childhood.

What is it, and which poets have written about it best?

I've written about it - if you'd call me a poet ;)

I think it's a great subject for a discussion thread Harry and I'll be interested to see if anyone comes up with any. I don't recall reading any other than the one you wrote about seeing a child blossom into a woman. That one wasn't lamenting the fact though.

From memory I think Chris Coe may have written one about the loss of community that went hand in hand with loss of childhood, and Steve Regan writes about childhood with some nostalgia.

I've done a few about childhood - my own (one chilling, a couple that are nostalgic for people I knew back then who were very significant to me), my daughter's, someone else's kid.

Oh yes - I think I remember some of those Laura.

I've googled Billy Collins to see what came up. He has an interesting spin on childhood - the fact that we never really grow up :)

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/child-development/

And another one, more from the perspective of the adult looking back on childhood.

http://www.billy-collins.com/2005/06/the_lanyard.html

Two lovely examples, Laura. I shall have to think...

'Spring and Fall' by my favourite poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins is an excellent one -

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/spring-and-fall-to-a-young-child/

One of mine -

http://www.writeoutloud.net/public/blogentry.php?blogentryid=8615

Why does a mother need a daughter?
Heart's needle, hostage to fortune,
freedom's end. Yet nothing's more perfect
than that bleating, razor-shaped cry
that delivers a mother to her baby.
The bloodcord snaps that held
their sphere together. The child
tiny and alone, creates the mother.

from 'poem for a daughter' by Anne Stevenson c Bloodaxe 2005 (poetry Archive)

That's at the beginning of childhood. I wrote one myself called 'in the end' which went on the Blog 13/12/2011

I love the Hopkins poem you put there Dave, and your own is expressive too, of the swift passing energy we see in children and the contrast with gravestones.

how about:

''eeny meeny miney mo
i'ts off to work
you now must go''

Tommy,
It`s poetry about children...not by them!

Mind, that`s a bit precocious...(if it`s about the benefit reduction)

Yes, a good subject fo discussion. I will try and search something out but am sure that it will not be possible to better this -

http://www.writeoutloud.net/public/blogentry.php?blogentryid=26172

Freda is too modest, as this is one of the very best poems to ever be posted on this site and one of my personal favourites still.

Win x

Thank you Winston for the link to Freda's wonderful poem. I agree with what you say about it. If there is ever a 'best of WOL' collection, it must surely be included.

Freda's Anne Stevenson is also striking and memorable.

These are two stanzas - the first and last -of my poem about childhood - Childish Thoughts

I wish I were but just a child
With no inhibitions, no sorrow
With no worries, no tomorrow
Just a happy future ahead of me
In this world that will always be

Yet sometimes I wish I were no child
For grown-ups to snuggle to feel above
For grown-ups to pawn when out of love
For grown-ups to flaunt to have a say
For grown-ups to guild and lead astray

Very topical, too, Omotayo, for our local news about the treatment of girls in Rochdale as they were also children. Then when you look at the courage of Malala in spite of being shot, words fail me.

Birches by Robert Frost...part of it being about the joys of childhood, although it's not strictly completely to do with it.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173524

Can't think of any more off the top of my head, though.