<h2><SPAN name="poem87"></SPAN>LIFE IS A PRIVILEGE</h2>
<p class="poetry">Life is a privilege. Its youthful days<br/>
Shine with the radiance of continuous Mays.<br/>
To live, to breathe, to wonder and desire,<br/>
To feed with dreams the heart’s perpetual fire,<br/>
To thrill with virtuous passions, and to glow<br/>
With great ambitions—in one hour to know<br/>
The depths and heights of feeling—God! in truth,<br/>
How beautiful, how beautiful is youth!</p>
<p class="poetry">Life is a privilege. Like some rare
rose<br/>
The mysteries of the human mind unclose.<br/>
What marvels lie in earth, and air, and sea!<br/>
What stores of knowledge wait our opening key!<br/>
What sunny roads of happiness lead out<br/>
Beyond the realms of indolence and doubt!<br/>
And what large pleasures smile upon and bless<br/>
The busy avenues of usefulness!</p>
<p class="poetry">Life is a privilege. Though noontide
fades<br/>
And shadows fall along the winding glades,<br/>
Though joy-blooms wither in the autumn air,<br/>
Yet the sweet scent of sympathy is there.<br/>
Pale sorrow leads us closer to our kind,<br/>
And in the serious hours of life we find<br/>
Depths in the souls of men which lend new worth<br/>
And majesty to this brief span of earth.</p>
<p class="poetry">Life is a privilege. If some sad fate<br/>
Sends us alone to seek the exit gate,<br/>
If men forsake us and as shadows fall,<br/>
Still does the supreme privilege of all<br/>
Come in that reaching upward of the soul<br/>
To find the welcoming Presence at the goal,<br/>
And in the Knowledge that our feet have trod<br/>
Paths that led from, and must wind back, to God.</p>
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