I don’t want our LR readers to miss John Hood’s elegant paean to John William Pope, one of the most gracious gentlemen and Tar Heels ever to bless the Old North State. He titled it simply “The Builder” ? an apt summation of the businessman, innovator, philanthropist, and philosopher.
I’m sure others will have their own favorites, but there was something about this stanza I found particularly eloquent:
You ? Gracious, Brave Protector, Father ? built
An arbor tinted not in greens but blues,
To cultivate young minds, as not to wilt,
To educate for higher things ? to choose
Why that one above others? It captures the overall point, so it serves the rhetorical need of the poem; it is structurally sound; and most importantly, it well illustrates the philosophy of freedom that animated its subject. But also (this is the je ne sais quoi factor) it has a wonderful cadence. It is, in a rough way of stating it, good art.
