<h2><SPAN name="page108"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></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"><SPAN name="page109"></SPAN><span class="pagenum">p.
109</span>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 soul 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 as the 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 lead from and must lead back to God.</p>
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