N.H. Kleinbaum

chapel

jumped dramatically onto his desk and turned to face the class. “‘O Captain! My Captain!’” he recited energetically, then looked around the room.

He jumped dramatically onto his desk and turned to face the class. “‘O Captain! My Captain!’” he recited energetically, then looked around the room.

“Seize the day. Make your lives extraordinary.”

“I say—drivel! One reads poetry because he is a member of the human race, and the human race is filled with passion! Medicine, law, banking—these are necessary to sustain life. But poetry, romance, love, beauty? These are what we stay alive for!

“What is the Dead Poets Society?”

“From ‘Ulysses,’ by Tennyson,”

“Fat black bucks in a wine-barrel room,

Barrel-house kings, with feet unstable,

Sagged and reeled and pounded on the table,

Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom,

Hard as they were able,

Boom, boom, BOOM,

With a silk umbrella and the handle of a broom,

Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM.

THEN I had religion, THEN I had a vision.

I could not turn from their revel in derision.

The Dead Poets Society met in the cave

say—drivel! One reads poetry because he is a member of the human race, and the human race is filled with passion! Medicine, law, banking—these are necessary to sustain life. But poetry, romance, love, beauty? These are what we stay alive for!