Poem Delivered Before the Connecticut Alpha of the Phi Beta Kappa Society
by James Gates Percival (9780217533478)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Where the eternal Geniuses are holding Their intellectual court. Not so with them. Their aim was not to catch the popular air. They did not seek to spread their open wings To such a fickle gale. They took their way Beneath the guidance of a better star, And with the heralding of better sounds, Than the cheap clamors of the common voice. They formed their own conceptions, and with toil, Long, earnest toil, they brought their laboring minds To the high level of the fame they loved, And then went boldly on. They were alone In their endeavor. None to cheer them nigh; None to speak favorable words of praise. They charmed their solitude with lofty verse, And made their hours of exile bright with song. They had no comforter, and asked for none; No help, for none they needed. Loneliness Was their best good; it left them to themselves, Kept out all vain intrusion, and around them Spread silently an atmosphere of thought, A sabbath of devotion, such as never Hallowed the twilight vaults of ancient minster, Or filled with many prayers the hermit's cave. It was the deep devotion of the mind In all its powers, sending itself abroad In search of every fair and blessed thing, And with a winning charm enticing home All to itself. They came at its command, Trooping like summer clouds, when the wide air Is thick with them, and every one is touched By the full noon to a transparent brightness, Like heaps of orient pearl. The kindled eye Ran over them, as lightning sends its flash Instant through all the billows of the storm, And took the fairest, and at once they stood In meet array, as if a temple rose, Graced with the purest lines of Grecian art, At the sweet touch of an Apollo's lyre. But they are gone...

USD $9.84

   Dispatch: Immediate - In Stock