Introduction
Born: May 14, 1885, Greenville, Mississippi.
Died: January 21, 1942, Greenville, Mississippi.
Buried: Greenville Cemetery, Greenville, Mississippi.
Born: May 14, 1885, Greenville, Mississippi.
Died: January 21, 1942, Greenville, Mississippi.
Buried: Greenville Cemetery, Greenville, Mississippi.
William was the son of American senator LeRoy Percy and Camille Bourges.
He attended the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee, and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
He practiced law with his father for a while, and participated in the Commission for Relief in Belgium during World War I. He also served in the American army, was promoted to captain in the 37th Division in 1918, and received the French Croix de Guerre.
He returned to Greenville, Mississippi, after the war and wrote poetry. He is also remembered for his leadership during the Mississippi floods of 1927, and for his opposition to the Ku Klux Klan.
I love to think of them at dawn
Beneath the frail pink sky
Casting their nets in Galilee
And fish-hawks circling by.
Casting their nets in Galilee
Just off the hills of brown,
Such happy, simple fisherfolk
Before the Lord walked down.
Contented, peaceful fishermen,
Before they ever knew
The peace of God that filled their hearts
Brim-full, and broke them too.
Young John who trimmed the flapping sail,
Homeless, in Patmos died.
Peter who hauled the teeming net,
Head-down, was crucified.
The peace of God, it is no peace,
But strife closed in the sod.
Yet, brothers, pray for but one thing,
The marvelous peace of God.
William Alexander Percy
Enzio’s Kingdom,
and Other Poems, 1924