“HOW beautiful is youth! How bright it gleams.
With its illusions, aspirations, dreams!
Book of Beginnings, Story without End,
Each maid a heroine, and each man a friend!
Aladdin’s Lamp, and Fortunatus’ Purse!
That holds the treasures of the universe!
All possibilities are in its hands,
No danger daunts it and no foe withstands;
In its sublime audacity of faith,
‘Be thou removed,’ it to the mountain saith,
And with ambitious feet, secure and proud,
Ascends the ladder leaning on the cloud.”