Birth and PRIVILEGE, a poem

Florence Earle Coates was born on this day in 1850 to Philadelphia lawyer George Hussey Earle, Sr. and Frances Van Leer Earle. The eldest of five children, to include Mary Earle, Alice Earle, George H. Earle, Jr., and Frances Van Leer Earle.

PRIVILEGE

BLEST is the right to share
     The grief of hearts forlorn,—
With other men to bear
     What must by men be borne;
          For night bestows dawn's orient rose
     And glories of the morn;

And as its shadow-wing
     Lends to the sunlight worth,
So out of suffering
     Arise the joys of earth—
          The good and ill, united still
     And offspring of one birth.

Great is the gift of life
     To him who lives indeed,
A partner in the strife,
     The toil, the pain, that speed—
          Like hidden rills veined through the hills—
     Life's ocean-deeps to feed!

"Privilege" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Independent (30 December 1909), Lyrics of Life (1909) and Poems (1916) Volume II.