Poet, Writer & Educator

(1879 - 1985)

Charlotte Young Manuscript Collection
UNCA Ramsey Library Special Collections

      Like Pillars of the Temple

Bewildered that in throngs I am alone,
    Alone though near the ones I love the best,
    I wonder if, among the crowd, unguessed,
There is a heart whose song my heart has known.
Alert to lighted eyes, a muted tone,
    That set apart their owner from the rest,
    I seem aware that I have once possessed
A sense whereby the spirit finds its own.
Yet -- if this perfect complement I found
    Some golden day, I could but say to you:
          Stand near, my beloved, but not too near.
A stranger to myself, my deepest wound
    From my own eyes I hide .... What could I do
    If you should glimpse it -- touch it with a tear?

Charlotte Young

Charlotte Young was seventy-four years old when her first volume of poetry, The Heart Has Reasons, was published.  Born in Hominy Valley (now Candler, North Carolina) on June 11, 1879, she died August, 1985 at the age of 107. During her childhood Young was educated by her father Pinckney Rabun Young, who was a teacher, minister and a Civil War veteran. In 1898 she attended Carson-Newman College and spent the next 65 years as a teacher and a principal in public and private schools. Young regularly took classes and received her education degree from Western Carolina University in 1947. Young was also an author who published regular articles in the Asheville Citizen and from 1953 to 1984 published six books of poetry. Charlotte Young was instrumental in founding the North Carolina Poetry Society.

Collections
Charlotte Young Manuscript Collection
Southern Appalachian Writers Collection
Dr. Louis D. Silveri Oral History Collection, Interview