Life with the sun in it –
Shaded by gloom!
Life with the fun in it –
Shadowed by Doom!

Life with its Love ever haunted by Hate!
Life’s laughing morrows frowned over by Fate!
Young Life’s wild gladness still waylaid by Age!
All its sweet badness still mocking the sage!
What can e’er measure the joy of its strife?

What boundless leisure
Count the heaped treasure
Of woe, that’s the pleasure
And beauty of Life?

by THOMAS RUNCIMAN (1841 – 1909)
Public Domain Poetry