Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1907-06-27


TIE blessed poets save s-not the kings
And not the warriors no great human
Have they e'er stood for; no great right
full Things
But trey have loved and cherished; by
their songs
We rlarcii and prosper; by their torches
The world moves forward into nobler
ways.
And in their hands for gracious use they
bear
The browning gift of Immortality;
The songIess cities perish: in thin air
Empires dissolve; old customs cease to
But ausht that is. though flung by others
The poets touch it and it can not die!
Still IIomer's heroes live and talk and
The old men chirp of Helen; beacons
From Ililm on to Argos in the night;
Penelope does not of her lord despair.
But ravels still the days work with her
hands,
And still Nausicaa by the pillar stands.
How marvellous times world-structure
with masonry Of dreanl-stuft, and with
halls
or golden music, vet Sc cure and strong
A miracle of the masters from all lands
And frori all times this house not made
with hands,
All, silently there sweeps before NV eyes
4 vision, of thle poets dear to all
Who feel the touch OF beauty. and who
prize
rhe nobler voices that around us fall:
al l,n6 ~
Facing the morning of world to be.
Lo. Roman Virgil, at whose wizard name
Things lost their power to change and
pass away:
TROY burns and does not vanish in the
A great queen greets the exiles: still
Men hear. as by the Theirs side they
Tho funeral ny mn of young Marccllus
roll.
Lo. also. E.n2land's Virgil, Arthur reigns
brewer in the halls of Camelot:
Fair women sacrifice for noble gains
Who never will grow old or be forgot:
AMI those three Queens that helped are
The men who help to Danish human ill.
Ard. pray. why fingers Hiawatha so?
Why must Priscilla and John Alden
Telling the old. old tale. and never go?
Wherefore this many year throughout
the land
Keeps sad EvanEeline her uEWearied
quest?
The answer is-our Virgil of the West!
Three Laureates of three great peoples
In golden phrase and music-ladon
words,
Moulded to sweetest use mis- country's
speech:
Loved simple things. touched ever the
common chords.
Winning tile peoples heart. and lived to
hear
The praises of the world sound in his ear.
The realm Of books each ever loved to
Finding new glories for the song he
Sang childhood. the affections of the
home.
And the dear constancy Of womans
Found tears in human things. and ever
Stretched yearning hands out toward the
farther shore
They sang that mer should faint not. but
Follow the CLEAN. ard wear the fadeless
flower
OF hope forever; that the goal is sure
For those who strive and trust the
Heavenly Power.
They lived rure lives and gentle. nor
through all
So like in .heir unlikeness. that dare
CAS- else | dare not name them side by
side.
Swayed by one mood and spirit, as they
The spaces close between them. else 50
wide:
While their immortal echoes strike across
All tuniults hitherward, nor suffer loss.
Bowdoin. dear Mother. to thy listening
His step falls on these pathways as of
Again the boys will is the winds wil''
And his the 'lonE. long thoughts of
youth once more;
For thine he was when first the vision
came
TO him of the alluring face of fame.
The melody from thy river. beauty and |
light
From the fair sky above thee where the
Thick with white worlds, roll solemnly
by night
Thy eon, aud master in the art divine.
All this he wrought into his lustrous line
But cbiefy-for he knew what springs |
mad fed
His yonthfu spirit in its purpose high
Did he rernember-on the day he said
That he was old and was about to die
With gracious words of tenderness and |
truth,
The faces of the teachers of his youth.
Thrice happy are such teachers. with the |
dover
OF knowledge and of counsel in their |
hand,
They sit forever at tho springs OF power. |
And. frGIE these quiet places of the |
land.
No trrmret blowing and no faC unfurled, |
They shape the forces that will Shape the |
world
All, as once more we walk these shades /
among.
What visions from the bygone years
arise,
Tho faces. n. the faces. how thev throng. |
And pass. and come again, with friendly |
eyes.
And fill. for each of us. with life moro
vast
That other present which We call the
past
And 10 is Of them Lo. the hearts that
nd