Billerica Memorial High School - BMHS Yearbook (Billerica, MA)

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GRADUATION ESSAYS OUR PASTIME AND OUR HAPPINESS WILL GRoW John Condon ON A NOBLE AMERICAN Maurice Houlnd

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Our Pastime and our Hapniness Vill Grow. There is no frigate like a book To take us lands away. Nor any coursers like a page Of prencing poetry. This treverse may the poorest take, Without oppress of toll; How frugal is the chariot That bears a human soul. Boolss offer an excellent means of escape from the stern: realities of life, They ere bridges that can take us from the dreariness and monotony of daily routine to the beauti- ful realms of the imezgination. Litereture, especially : po- etry, is one of the most acccssible sources of beruty, and beauty is one of the most permanent sources of sratisfaction in life. Keats acclaimed besuty as an everlaetaam delight in his famous lines: A thins of beauty is e joy forever Its ioveliness !increescs; it will n2ver Pass intocnotiincross.. For beauty of imecory ie noe Eby cen surposs the first two stanzas of Gray's Dlercy Written In £ Country Churchvard: The curfew tolls the lmcll of narting dey, The lowing here wincs slowly o'cr the les, The vlowman homeward vniods his werry wry, And leaves the vorlda to derkness and to me. Now fades the glimmering landscepe on the sisht, And all the air a soiemn stiliness holds, Save where tke beetle whecls his droning Piight, And drowsy tinl:lings lali the @istent folds. The victorial langueze used is so expressive thet one's mind is withdraw from its meteriel treck and set free in the lend of the imegination. Litereture not only furnishes eccess to beauty, but’ it le