Dead Poets Society

quickly took it before the others noticed. Charlie grabbed the book
from Neil and read:
    “Teach me to love?
Go teach thyself more wit:
    I chief professor am
of it.
    The god of love, If
such a thing there be,
    May learn to love
from me.“
     
    The boys “oohhed and
aahhed” at Charlie’s alleged prowess. “Come on guys, we gotta be serious,” Neil
said.
    Cameron took the
book. “This is serious,” he said and began to read:
     
    “We are the music
makers
    And we are the
dreamers of dreams,
    Wandering by lonely
sea-breakers,
    And sitting by
desolate streams;
    World losers and
world forsakers,
    On whom the pale
moon gleams:
    Yet we are the
movers and shakers
    Of the world,
forever, it seems.
    With wonderful
deathless ditties
    We build up with
world’s great cities,
    And out of a
fabulous story
    We fashion an
empire’s glory:
    One man with a
dream, at pleasure
    Shall go forth and
conquer a crown;
    And three with a new
song’s measure
    Can trample an empire
down.
    We in the ages
lying,
    In the buried past
of the earth,
    Built Nineveh with
our sighing,
    And Babel itself
with our mirth.”
     
    “Amen,” several boys
uttered.
    “Sshh!” hissed the
others. Cameron continued: I
     
    “And overthrew them
with prophesying
    To the old of the
new world s worth;
    For each age is a
dream that is dying,
    Or one that is
coming to birth.”
     
    Cameron stopped
dramatically. “That was by Arthur O’Shaughnessy, 1844-81.”
    The boys sat
quietly. Meeks took the book and leafed through the pages. “Hey, this is
great,” he said, and started reading seriously:
     
    “Out of the night
that covers me,
    Black as the Pit
from pole to pole
    I thank whatever
gods may be
    For my unconquerable
soul!”
     
    “That was W. E.
Henley, 1849-1903.”
    “Come on, Meeks,”
Pitts scoffed. “You?“
    “What?” Meeks said,
his look all surprise and innocence.
    Knox flipped through
the book next and suddenly moaned out loud, reading as though to a vision of
Chris in the cave. “ ‘How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to
the depth...“
    Charlie grabbed the
book. “Cool it already, Knox,” he growled.
    The boys laughed.
Neil took the book and read to himself for a minute. The boys huddled around
the fire that by now was growing dimmer.
    “Sshh,” Neil said,
reading deliberately,
     
    “Come my friends,
    ‘Tis not too late to
seek a newer world....
    for my purpose holds
    To sail beyond the
sunset... and though
    We are not now that
strength which in old days
    Moved earth and
heaven; that which we are, we are ;—
    One equal temper of
heroic hearts,
    Made weak by time
and fate, but strong in will
    To strive, to seek,
to find, and not to yield. ”
     
    “From ‘Ulysses,’ by
Tennyson,” he concluded. The boys grew silent, touched by Neil’s impassioned
reading and Tennyson’s statement of purpose.
    Pitts took the book.
He started to pound out a Congo rhythm as he read the poem:
     
    “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.
    THEN I SAW THE
CONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK,
    CUTTING THROUGH THE
FOREST WITH A GOLDEN TRACK.... ”
     
    As Pitts continued
to read, the boys were entranced by the compelling rhythm of the poem. They
danced and clowned to the beat, jumping and whooping around. Their gestures
grew steadily wilder and more ridiculous and they began to make jungle noises,
beating their legs and heads. Pitts continued reading as Charlie led the group,
dancing and howling, out of the cave and into the night.
    They danced wildly
in the forest, swaying with the tall trees and the howling wind.
    The fire in the cave
went out and the forest turned pitch black. The boys stopped dancing, and, as
soon as they did, they started to shiver, partly from the cold and partly from
the exhilaration they felt from having let their imaginations run free.
    “We’d better get
going,” Charlie said. “Before you know it, we’ll have to be in class.”
    They snaked through
the woods to a clearing that led back to the Welton campus. “Back to reality,“
Pitts said as they stood facing the campus.
    “Or something,” Neil
sighed. They ran quietly to their dorm,