A green sapling grows from a weathered brass watering can, with exposed roots and blue paper drops hanging below.

Original artwork, not a still

Richelieu

Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton

In the lexicon of youth, which fate reserves For a bright manhood, there is no such word As “fail.”

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

Youth is imagined as having a vocabulary with failure left out. The promise of a bright adulthood makes that confidence sound like part of its destiny. Describing failure as an unknown word gives the passage its bold, almost absolute faith in possibility.

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