Human Life Like a Poem
——Lin Yutang

59'

I think that, from a standpoint,
human life almost reads like a poem.
It has its own rhythm and beat,
its internal cycles of growth and decay.
No one can say that a life with childhood,
manhood and old age is not a beautiful arrangement;
the day has its morning, noon and sunset,
and the year has its seasons, and it is good
that it is so. There is no good or bad in life,
except what is good according to its own season.
And if we take this biological view of life
and try to live according to the seasons,
no one but a conceited fool or an impossible idealist
can deny that human life can be lived like a poem.