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

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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

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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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ae my wikiy 4, AR mae] sAaatl: Kae Roe? i. also acqueints one wit the ueas and iceals that have in- Piuenced the world. In the fdvils of The Ainge, ..fred..Lord ome — ns On ee mae Demet. ee Tennyson presents, in the wores ai Aznshur,,.the idealemanner of living according to vhbe 31%ta contury code of chivalry I made them lay thei: hands tn mins and swear To reverence the King us if 16 wore @eeer conscienze, su toes conscience as their King, To Dreek “She heathen and uoacld the Christ, To ride aorcad redressing timan wronss, To speak iio; slarder, no, nor listen to. ii, To honor his own vord as if his Cod's, To lead sweet lives in purest chastity, To love one maiden only, cleave to her, And whoship her by years of noble deeuvs Until they won her. Tennyson stressed integrity. Raiph ‘Weldo Emexson, on the other hand, stressed originality. He belleved that a genius is a person who is strong enough to stick by his own ideas and convictiong, although he be criticized on every Mane. The ideas cf the following juotations from his essay Self Relinnce have inspired mauy e@ gomius ir ais work: “Trust thysvlf; overy hear vibrates to that iron string Nothing is at lact sacred but the integrity of your own mind . An institution is the le engthened shadow of one man. The life of the electrical wizard, Thomas dison, serves well to illustrate the advisability of following ‘“merson's idea. Edison was scoffed at on every hand, but his self-re- liance urged him on to complete triuwnrph. | ) Another peat Ws in the study of liters Risse ts is that it of- fers one a chance to meet end appraise significant types of human character. damlet, by Shakespeare, gives one, for con- |7