Chapter II: Introduction (2)

As might be surmised from a perusal of this effort, his peroration is rarely in keeping with the main portion of his oration. In fact, the close of all his speeches may be said to be very similar, being invariably "Ottah," or some variation of it.

Occasionally the exuberance of his genius leads him into the error of crowding together metaphors to the detriment of perspicuity. When, for example, he says:

"The waters of heaven descending on the breast-bones of the women; and the youthful Moses, sitting on the back-bone of eternity, sucking the pap of time," we feel that there is a redundancy in the expression.

Some specimens of his remarkable verbal and figurative power in conversation are forcible in the extreme. It is said, with what truth we know not, that on one occasion the venerable head of this institution ventured to "tackle" him in a religious argument. Bill, after listening with a deference which was evidently a tribute of respect to the Doctor's position rather than an acknowledgment of the cogency of his reasoning, settled the question by an interrogatory: "Dr. Hopkins, do you suppose I'm goin' to believe that when I die I'll go up and sit on one of those clouds with my legs hangin' over?"

We infer from the above that his religious belief is somewhat vague.

Soon after the marriage of Charles, Bill's son, the heir apparent of the Pratt estates, Bill was asked how Charles' wife was getting along, whereupon he was pleased to remark that he believed she was "under conviction." Since then the conviction has become a certainty, and Bill is a grandfather. Commenting on the appearance of his grandchild, he has been heard to say: "She's a pretty child. I say she looks like Charles. Charles says she looks like me."

There are few scenes that abide longer in the student's recollection than those in which Bill is the central figure. It not infrequently happens that, when a number of lovers of fun are gathered around him as he vigorously brandishes axe or saw, one of them, willing, for the sake of drawing him out, to make a martyr of himself for the public good, addresses him. On such occasions a conversation, something as follows, occurs:

Student--"Bill, what do you think of the constitutionality of the configuration, esthetically considered?"

No reply is elicited from Bill, but a scornful "Ottah," as he puts on a new stick and continues his work.

Student, (not discouraged)--"Really, Bill, I should like your opinion on that point."

Bill, (having finished his stick)--"You ain't no kind of a man. You hain't got no elements, no justice of earth. When I see these young men and the monument of liberty imported from Long Island for the benefit of the rising generation, Ottah! Rolling Ottah!! Rang Dang! Du Dah!!!"

Of course a rebuke so scathing and sudden as this, never fails to annihilate its object. Being assured by the rapturous applause which ever succeeds his efforts, that he has made a good hit, Bill suddenly becomes as impenetrable as Gibraltar, and saws vigorously.

If, at a time like this, "the Professor," _alias_ "Niobe," having snatched a few moments from his professional perambulations in search of "_Coffee_," steps forward, signalizing his debut with the interrogatory: "Do ye think I'm a common laborin' man?" naught is wanting to complete the student's bliss.

"The Professor" is by no means as varied in his accomplishments as Bill, his only quotable utterances being the one already given and another, supposed to be severely sarcastic: "How lang has he been _so_?" He, however, has, in the recesses of his brain, a dim idea that Bill is weak, viewed from an intellectual standpoint, while Bill has an equally indistinct belief that "the Professor" has very little furniture in his upper story. How far either of them is wrong our space does not permit us to say. Both have a supreme contempt for students, regarding them as effeminate cumberers of the ground. In the presence of Bill, "the Professor" does not appear to advantage. Being entirely unable to compete with him in a war of words, he is usually forced to betake himself to dancing; which, compared with oratory, is frivolous.

Occasionally the adversities of life seem to press upon Bill with peculiar force, rendering him extremely dejected. At such times, though his flow of language does not forsake him, he is without that cheerful aspect and spontaneous expression ordinarily so characteristic. No longer does he cause the campus to ring with his hearty vociferation, but he grumbles very like an ordinary mortal:

"I tell yer now I don't believe no man ever got rich sawin' wood. I tell yer it's hard work to saw wood all day and car' it up two pa'r stairs on yer back. I've sawed wood mor'n thirty years. You ask Mist'r Tatlock, if yer don't believe it. Mist'r Tatlock's nice man. There ain't no temptations about him. I sawed last night till twel' o'clock, an' it's hard work. Say, that feller up in that room gin eight dollars for that cord o' wood, an' it ain't good for nothin'. It's all full o' the Ottahs in the lucination of the veins."

In the fall, Bill, for a season, abandons wood-sawing for the lighter and more refined occupation of stove-blacking. While engaged in this profession he never fails to assert his profound and lasting conviction that, like sawing, it does not offer a broad and easy road to opulence. His execution of whatever work is given him in this line is at once artistic and masterly, showing that excellence in oratory is not incompatible with an aptitude for the fine arts. His outfit is eminently complete and choice. In order that he may fail in no portion of his work, he usually carries with him a stock consisting of:

1. About 35 brooms, carried in a large sack. These are useful in putting on the finishing touches, and ensuring an unapproachable lustre.

2. Brushes of various kinds, comprising shoe-brushes, hat-brushes, clothes-brushes, hair-brushes, tooth-brushes, nail-brushes, shaving-brushes, and sometimes, a stove-brush. These are useful in many respects, the shoe-brushes and hair-brushes being instrumental in doing the heavy and plain work, while the shaving-brushes and tooth-brushes are extremely handy in doing justice to the filagree work and ornamental portion.

3. A platform, or dais, on which to place the stove.

4. A stick, curiously carved, to beat out of pipes.

5. Cloths, of various sizes and patterns, to wipe the poker and the legs of the stove.

6. Oil-cloths, for emergencies.

7. One large bottle or jug with a stick in it, and two smaller ones, all filled with mysterious decoctions whose composition and properties are known to Bill alone.

8. A sponge.

9. Small boxes containing a dingy powder.

10. A wheel-barrow, on which Bill vainly attempts to carry the rest of his goods.

We have been thus minute in describing his equipment, knowing him to be at the head of his profession, and hoping that any youth aspiring to celebrity in it, who may chance upon these pages, will profit therefrom. We regret to be obliged to state that there are some so utterly out of sympathy with the cause of art, as to assert that the greater portion of Bill's utensils are useless; and that by much puttering he loses time without improving his work. These persons we are inclined to class among those zealous but unthinking lovers of simplicity, whose misdirected reformatory efforts in other departments of life are so well known. As might be expected, Bill treats these sacrilegious innovators with the contempt they so justly merit. Were an officious stranger to try to convince an artist that one color would answer all his purposes as well as a greater number, would the suggestion of the untutored interloper cause the artist to waver in the sternness of his faith? And shall the subject of this sketch revolutionize his mode of stove-blacking at the promptings of an untaught spectator?

It would be by no means surprising if such nicety of execution as that to which we have alluded tended to draw his attention from rhetorical themes. Yet, spite of this apparently necessary result, some of his grandest and most startling flights of oratory have had their inspiration from incidents connected with stove-nigrification. Bill has, as it were, soared on the legs of the stove, like Perseus on Mercury's sandals, to unexplored realms of space and thought. At such moments the stove-pipe becomes to him a magic telescope, through which he peers far into the unfathomable depths.

There are times when, through the influence of passion, he for a little time lays aside his oratorical embellishments. We remember one such occasion. He had just finished sawing a pile of wood, when a student, who was looking from a window, told him there was one stick which he had not sawed, and taunted him with intending to purloin it. Instantly his countenance became livid with rage, his lips separated, showing a fine dental formation, and he exclaimed in pure Anglo-Saxon:--

"You're a liar. You lie."

The student, perceiving from Bill's descent to the vernacular of common men that his ire was roused, abjectly and unqualifiedly apologized.

"Well," said the orator, threateningly, "you'd better take that back. I've sawed wood more'n thirty year, an' no man ever 'cused me o' stealin'." Then gradually becoming good-natured, he added, "Crucifixin' yourself in the observatories of life in the gray dawn over your jewelry. No sir, I never stole nothin'. _You_ do. You'd steal if you wan't afraid to. Ottah!"

We regret to be obliged to chronicle one incident that would seem to indicate something of malevolence. The impartial historian, however, must not shrink from the full performance of his duty.

Another of the notables of this region, of sable lineage, called, on account of a peculiar propensity to split two-inch planks with his head, "Abe Bunter," not long since honored the students of this institution with a series of calls for the purpose of soliciting money to purchase for himself a bovine, to replace one providentially taken from him. His success may he inferred from a remark let fall by Bill, accompanied by a demoniac chuckle:

"Say, old Abe Bunter's round with an inscription, an' he hain't got a cent."

Like all great men, Bill has his eccentricities. Fresh meat, and, indeed, meat of any kind except pork, he abominates. Beefsteak, especially, is an object of indescribable aversion. Untold wealth would not suffice to induce him to partake of it. This repugnance is due partly to a fear of being choked with bones, and partly to a scorn of its tenderness. The physical weaknesses of students he attributes entirely to their consuming so much of it. Viewed from his standpoint, perhaps students are effeminate, for he possesses the strength of brass, and an amount of endurance astonishing to contemplate.

His ordinary working-hours are from six in the morning till six at night; but, when business presses, he rises, like the virtuous woman, while it is yet night, and brings down on his devoted head the anathemas of various students by commencing his day's sawing under their windows at the moderately early hour of one A.M. He is a living proof of the utter and irreclaimable falsity of the idiotic doggerel:

"Early to bed, and early to rise,
Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise."

Last summer, however, during the heated term, he was obliged to come down to the limit of ordinary mortals, as he feared that the influence of the sun's rays would bring about a degeneration of the Ottah and Verdigres in the brain, and result in an explosion of the blood-veins. By careful sanitary precautions he was enabled to avoid this fearful malady and preserve his physical well-being.

He can, and will, for the comparatively slight sum of twenty-five cents, hold his breath for five minutes. He, himself, asserts that he can do it for seven minutes, but that the doctor advised him against doing so, as it might produce a fusion of the Ottahs.

His costume is at once serviceable and unique. It usually consists of from two to five shirts, and three pairs of pantaloons. He never was known to wear the same hat or pair of boots all day. Occasionally he dons a vest, and, at rare times, a coat. In stature he is below the medium height; nevertheless, his appearance is eminently imposing and prepossessing. His countenance is rather oblong, and wears an expression that is a singular mixture of profound gravity and fearful earnestness. His eyes resemble those of some species of fish, and are set under curiously wrinkled brows that nearly conceal them.... Such is Bill Pratt, honest, cheerful, and industrious, the maligner of no man. His sturdy figure long holds a place in the memory of every student; his photograph decorates every student's album. Without him our college would be incomplete. Esteemed by all for his unfailing integrity and industry, laughed at by all for his oddities, he remains ever the same. We trust that the day is far distant when he will be among us no more, and when the college walls shall cease to echo his chaotic and ungovernable eloquence.

_Quarterly_, 1869.

ATTIS

ANON.

Fair Phrygian Attis, loved of Cybele,
Fired with the service of her awful shrine,
Had wandered far before his restless soul
Along the gleaming sand-line of the beach.
At last he came to a deep shaded nook,
Where giant trees thick wreathed with twisting vines
Clomb the steep hills on every side but one,
And rimmed the sky with a green fringe of leaves.

But toward the south wide open to the shore
It seemed a lap, wherein the sun and sea
Together lay warm in each other's smiles.
Down the steep sides a little babbling brook
Leapt with low laughter, fleeing from itself,
Then, wid'ning out into a lucid pool,
Crept slowly seaward through low banks of fern.
Here, stretching his bare limbs upon the sward,
He watched the water falling down the rocks.

His jetty hair, curled loosely on his head,
Fell down upon his shoulders glistening white,
The rounded symmetry of breast and limb,
And the rich color of his sensuous lips
Almost belied the down upon his cheek.
No uncouth garments hid his perfect form,
Nor marred its grace, but, naked like the gods,
The ruddy sunlight bathed him in its glow.

So, as the day sank down the golden west,
And the long index shadows toward the east
Seemed telling of the morn that was to rise,
A band of nymphs came past him where he lay
Half-hidden in the grass, and to the pool
Rushed with sweet rivalry and little screams
To feel the water cold around their limbs.
They saw him not, nor dreamed that mortal eyes
In that lone glen were looking on their play.

Soon they passed on, save one who near the bank
Had lain to rest till sleep stole eyes and ears.
Then Attis rose and would have sought the shrine
But when he saw the sleeper he stood still.
He was too young to know the power of love
When mighty Cybele from his far home--
His home, which lay beyond the heaving sea,
And which to think of even yet would bring
The bitter tears into his dark-lashed eyes,--
Had brought him as a priest into her fane,
And bound him by an oath of dreaded wrath
To be hers only, hers forevermore.

But years had passed since then, he was a man,
And man's strong passion drove into his cheek
The ruby symbol of its first felt power,
As leaning o'er he gazed upon the nymph.
She moved a little under the hot glance
That burned from Attis' eyes upon her face,
And seemed about to wake. Quick he drew back,
Walking away a few steps towards the beach,
Then turned to take one last look ere he went;
She had not woke, her head lay on her arms,
And her face looking toward him seemed to smile.

He could not go, he dared not longer stay,
But stood and wished, and feared, and let his wish
Conquer his fear; returning step by step
Again he bent above her. Then, at last,
The wrath of scorner Cybele forgot,
He thought of nothing but his newfelt love.

Sudden she raised the lids, and her full eyes
Looked straight upon him. Attis laid his hand
Upon her arm to stay the flight he feared,
Saying, "Fear not, 'tis only Attis, I,
And 'tis my love that holds me here by thee."

She smiled back on him and her hand in his
Thrilled with a touch that maddened through his veins;
He bent down over her and all his soul
Slid through his lips in one long burning kiss
Which lovers only know.

Lo, Cybele,
Her chariot, lion-drawn, grinding the sands,
Stood awfully before them. Not a word
Came from her lips, but her great angry eyes
Dark with the wrath and vengeance of the gods
Gloomed forth a hate no mortal could endure;
Pale Attis looked in them but once, and then
In frenzied madness fled along the shore.

_Quarterly_, 1871.

COLLEGE FRIENDSHIPS

CHARLES CUTHBERT HALL '72[1]

My other self, my bosom friend,
Thy faithful arm in mine enwinding,
Let us fare forth amid the trees,
Each in the other comfort finding.
For though our boyhood be so near,
Yet have we tasted grief and fear.

I feel upon my heart the weight
Of things unknown, the dread of living,
And thou, dear friend, canst strengthen me
By thy heart's wondrous gift of giving;
So, when life's strangeness frighteneth me,
In perfect trust I turn to thee.

Thou dost not scorn my foolish fear,
Nor e'er upbraid my dreamy thinking;
Thou dost not brand me with contempt
Because of all my frequent shrinking.
Thou art a tower of strength to me,
So let me walk awhile with thee.

Not all our hours are hours of dread:
We know the hours of splendid hoping;
When life's ongoing ways shine clear,
And vision takes the place of groping;
In those Great Hours I seek for thee
To walk amid the trees with me.

How hath God made our lives as one,
Knitting our fortunes up together
In comradeship that welcometh
The clearing or the lowering weather--
The joy or pain--heart answering heart!
Are we not friends till Death us part?

Then mount with me the rugged hill
And let our thoughts go seaward soaring,
Until in fancy's ear there sound
The chime of surf, the tempest's roaring;
And, by the sun-glint on the sea,
We trace the years that are to be.

My other self, why bound by death
The compass of our friendship's reaching?
Why doubt the promptings of our hearts,
Or falsify our spirits' teaching?
Must not the friends beneath the sod
Still walk amid the trees of God?

1903.

_Literary Monthly_, 1909

[Footnote 1: Died 1908.]

LORRAINE--1870

ANON.

I

Sweetly the June-time twilights wane
Over the hills of fair Lorraine,

Sweetly the mellow moonbeams fall
O'er rose-wreathed cottage and ivied wall.

But never dawned a brighter eve,
Than the holy night of St. Genevieve.

And never moonlight fairer fell,
Over the banks of the blue Moselle.

Richly the silver splendor shines,
Spangles with sheen the clustered vines,

And rests, in benediction fair,
On midnight tresses and golden hair.

Golden hair and midnight tress,
Mingle in tender lovingness,

While the evening breezes breathe upon
Marie and Jean,--and their hearts are one!

"The spell of silence lifts at last,
Marie, the saint's sweet day is past!

"Her vesper chimes have died away,
Where shall we be on Christmas day?"

With answering throb heart thrilled to heart,
Hand met hand with sudden start.

For in each soul shone the blessed thought,
The vision fair of a little cot,

Nestled beneath the lilac spray,
Waiting the blissful bridal day!

Low bowed in tearful silence there,
Their hearts rose up in solemn prayer,

And still the mellow lustre fell
Over the banks of the blue Moselle.

And still the moonlight shone upon
Marie and Jean,--and their hearts were one!

II

Six red moons have rolled away,
And the sun is shining on Christmas day.

Over the hills of fair Lorraine--
Heaps of ashes and rows of slain.

Where merrily rang the light guitar,
The angry trump of the red hussar

Flings on the midnight's shrinking breath,
The direful notes of the Dance of Death!

Underneath the clustered vines,
The sentry's glittering saber shines.

Over the banks of the blue Moselle,
Rain of rocket and storm of shell!

Where to-day is the forehead fair,
Crowned with masses of midnight hair?

A summer's twilight saw him fall,
Dead on Verdun's leaguered wall.

Where, alas! is the little cot?
Ask the blackened walls of Gravelotte!

Under the lilac broods alone
A maid whose heart is turned to stone.

Who sits, with folded fingers, dumb,
And meekly prays that her time may come!

Yet see! the Death-god's baleful star!
And War's black eagle screams afar!

And lo! the Christmas shadows wane
Over the hills of sad Lorraine.

_Quarterly_, 1873.

IN ANSWER

"S."

And thou didst idly dream,
Or, careless of thy action, think,
To cast a veil o'er all the past
And weld anew the broken link?
Vain thought to weave anew the bond
That thou didst ruthless sever;
Know friendship often turns to love,
But love to friendship never.

And love ne'er dies but when some hand
Too careless of their mimic strife,
Slow cleaves its tendrils from their hold,
And hurls them down bereft of life.
And love once fled can ne'er return,
Nor in its stead can friendship stand,
Nor twine again the tendrils frail,
Nor e'er unites the broken band.

_Athenoeum_, 1875.

THE MYSTIC

"TROUBADOUR"

An early memory of my earliest youth.

There came into the village I called home
A traveller, worn and faint. His garments held
The alien dust of many a weary march;
None but a child would e'er have thought the man
A thing to look at twice, much less adore.
But unto me, child that I was, the look
In his large pleading eyes seemed so divine,
The massive brow so free from thought of earth,
The curves of his sad mouth so tremulous
With more than woman's love and tenderness,
And in each word and act such gentleness,
That the quaint thought possessed and held my mind,
That by some strange hap an angel soul,
As penance for some small offense in heaven
Had been compelled to traverse in this wise
Our darkened world. And not alone his look
Which made his rusty vesture fine, nor yet
Alone the birds which fluttered round him as
He were a friend, led to the same belief--
But he with other men had naught in common.
They called him fool and idiot, jibed at him
And at his rags, and mocked his lofty air
So far above his low condition.
And yet unto their jeers he never word
Replied, nor ever seemed to know that they
About him crawled; but fixing his great eyes
Upon the sunset slopes, while mirrored in
His face was seen the battle in his heart
Of hopes and fears, he rather breathed than spoke
Such words as these, except that his had soul:
"At length, O weary heart, it seemeth me
The rest is near. The air seems full of promise;
My eyes are fixed on what they cannot see;
My ears are filled with whispers not quite heard.
All things seem waiting as to hear good news.
The western breeze hath messages for me;
The western hills lean down and beckon me.
It must be, sure, because, it _must_ be so,
That just beyond those hills, O heart, there doth
Await us both the rest we long have sought."
They told him that the world was round, and so
It could not be that all this journeying
Should e'er do more than bring him back to us,
If he through weary years should persevere.
"I know," he quick replied, "the world is round
To railroads and canals, and yet I do
Believe," and, voicing o'er his hopeful creed,
And striding on, he soon was lost to view.

We heard of him as passing through the towns
To west of us; but soon he was forgot
By all except myself and one poor maid
Whom much love led astray. And soon she paid
The debt of Nature, not as doth befit
Such payment dread, but, maddened by cold looks,
She, sporting with dank grasses in a pool,
Gave back to God the life His creatures scorned,
And breathed in death moist prayers to heaven.

Never
Since then hath any mention of the man
Reached me. Nor have I ought on which to rely
Except a dim remembrance. Yet in me
A fixed belief hath taken root, and grows
With growing years,--that, far beyond those hills
I' the west, upon high plains, among his peers,
The fool hath long been deemed philosopher.

_Athenoeum_, 1876.

BALLADE OF THE HAUNTED STREAM

EDWARD G. BENEDICT '82

Like some fair girl who hastes to meet her swain,
Yet hesitates each step with maiden fear,
So the still stream glides downward to the main,
Pausing at times in fern-set pools,--and here,
Where bend the willow branches to the clear
Deep pool beneath, and where the forest hoar
Seems whispering old tales of magic lore,
They say by night the fairies dance in glee,
And on the moss beside the curving shore
The Queen of Elfland holds her revelry.

From beds in purple buds where they have lain
Until the mystic midnight time drew near,
To chimes of hare-bells and the far-off strain
Of forest melodies, the elves appear
In all the gorgeousness of goblin gear.
With brilliant dress the golden-beetle wore,
With scarlet plumes the humming-bird once bore,
They come in troops from every flower and tree,
And 'round the fairy throne in concourse pour,--
The Queen of Elfland holds her revelry.

Yet mortal eyes see not the goblin train
Whose bells sound faintly on the passer's ear,--
Who dares attempt a secret sight to gain
Feels the sharp prick of many an elfin spear,
And hears, too late, the low, malicious jeer,
As long thorn-javelins his body gore,
Until, defeated, breathless, bruised, and sore,
He turns him from the haunted ground to flee,
And murmurs low, as grace he doth implore,
"The Queen of Elfland holds her revelry!"

ENVOI

Sweet mortal maid, that fairy world of yore
Has vanished, with the midnights that are o'er;
Yet come and sit beside the stream with me,
That I, beholding thee, may say, "Once more
The Queen of Elfland holds her revelry."

_Argo_, 1882.

INDIAN SUMMER

VILLANELLE

HERBERT S. UNDERWOOD '83

When the forest flames in crimson and gold,
While the sinking sun seems a molten mass,
And a beautiful blaze is all the wold,

The sumach flashes, a banner unrolled,
And yellow-clad boughs glow like burnished brass,
When the forest flames in crimson and gold.

What secrets the listening leaves are told,
As strollers along worn wood-paths pass,
And a beautiful blaze is all the wold!

In the gay, glad light grow wooers bold,
For there's brightness e'en in the dark morass,
When the forest flames in crimson and gold.

And when she is gently coaxed and cajoled,
The hues find mirrors in cheeks of the lass,
And a beautiful blaze is all the wold.

But still is there one who remains e'er cold
In the glow of the Indian summer; alas!
When the forest flames in crimson and gold,
And a beautiful blaze is all the wold.

_Athenoeum_, 1883.

GONDELIED

"LICHEN"

O'er the deep sighing sea,
Mirrored as dreams of thee,
Stars watches keep.
Wavelets laugh soft and free,
Calling my love to me;
The world's asleep.

Far from the day's dull care,
Into the moonlight fair,
Our boat shall speed;
Songs floating on the air,
Haste we with music rare,
Where Love would lead.

Life's but a transient dream;
All things that are or seem,
Breathe but a day.
Come, eyes that on me beam,
Leave what ye sorrow deem,
While yet ye may.

_Fortnight_, 1886.

IN HOLLAND BROWN

RONDEAU

SANBORN GOVE TENNEY '86

In holland brown she stands to greet
Me as I come adown the street,
The sunlight falling on her hair
Leaves warm caresses gently there--
A picture with true grace replete!

The roses twining round her feet
Breathe gentle fragrance rare and sweet,
She sings a merry rustic air--
In holland brown.

O years that fly so swift and fleet!
O storms that 'gainst her window beat!
Keep her from harm and tears and care!
That future years may find her where
In days of June we used to meet,
In holland brown.

_Fortnight_, 1886.

HYLAS

SANBORN GOVE TENNEY '86

Many years have left their shadows on the pathless flow of time;
Many bards have with soft music sung their lays of ancient rhyme,
Since the day when rosy Hylas plunged into Scamander's wave,
Since the am'rous Naiads bore him where no human arm could save.

On the waves swift Argo rested; scarce a ripple stirred the sea,
While across the Dardan meadows sighed the breezes soft and free;
Then the sun, in golden splendor, sank into a sea of flame,
Darkness o'er the blue hills rested; yet no fair young Hylas came.

For the water nymphs had loved him, when they saw his beauty rare,
And with yielding lips caressing, they entwined him with their hair,
Till they bound him, still entreating, with this soft and silken chain,
Till they drew him 'neath the waters, whence he ne'er should come again.

Then the moon, a crescent jewel, edged the clouds with silver light,
While they sped like shallops sailing, swift-winged messengers of Night.
And the stream, dark-hued and somber, sighed in surges on the shore,
Gently sighed among its rushes, "Hylas! Hylas!" o'er and o'er.

Yet no voice replied in answer, tho' the sighing louder grew,
Tho' with sorrow bowed the flowers and their tears were drops of dew;
No sweet echo breaks the silence, tho' the heart may hope and yearn,
O'er the stream a realm of quiet, on the shore the empty urn.

_Fortnight_, 1886.

THE 'CELLO

SAMUEL ABBOTT '87

The mellow light steals o'er its silent strings,
That catch the sound of some far sylvan strain;
Such fantasie as thrills the poet's brain,
Or Morpheus, floating 'neath the pale stars, brings.

And list! Divinely, on its own sad wings,
It sings a wondrous pitiful refrain,
Methinks some soul with aching grief is lain--
That moans and dies with broken murmurings.

The voice is hushed, the lights are low and spent;
The dancers bid farewell, with tired feet.
Too few, I ween, this thing of wood has meant
A tenth part what its harmony, so sweet,
Has told to me. 'Mid joy, the sorrows greet
The wanderer, their hearts by weeping rent.

_Fortnight_, 1887.

MILLET'S "ANGELUS"

ELBRIDGE LAPHAM ADAMS '87

Dim, distant, tinkling chimes,
That summoned men in olden times
To pray the Virgin grace impart;
Ye solemn voices of a day gone by,
Whose mystic strains of melody
Alike touched peer and peasant's heart:
Your music falters in the fleeting years,
Yet still comes faintly to our ears,
Saved by a master's cunning art.

_Literary Monthly_, 1885.

A SUMMER AFTERNOON

HENRY D. WILD '88

In the country, with a soft, calm, hazy afternoon to keep you company! To feel that Nature and yourself have moods in common, for you are lazy and Nature is lazy, too, and blinks sleepily at you from filmy, dreamy eyes that open and shut with your own in a sort of drowsy rhythm. What more delightful than to yield yourself entirely to the present mood and wander off somewhere, aimless except to see and feel? The trim soberness of the dusty road with its gray windings and vistas of sand-ruts becomes less matter-of-fact at length, and so you leave it to itself, and seek a path that leads to the heart of Nature and far from ways of men. Down grassy slopes and over little hillocks that pique your curiosity by shutting out the view of what is coming next; now skirting the edge of a furrowed potato-patch, and now sauntering down cool lanes of corn, listening to the breezy lisping of the long, green leaves that flap you softly in the face; now across a moist spot where a spring bubbles forth, apparently only to nourish a family of cowslips, and so on and on until you break the stillness of a shady wood as your feet keep alternate time among the heaps of leaves whose rustling is varied by the occasional noise of crackling twigs. The damp air, freshened by contact with trickling drops and oozy bogs, and perfumed with spicy cedar, soothes and cools. Yonder lies prostrate some mighty giant of the forest, victim of a ruthless storm, grim with decay and raising a vertical base of black sod and tangled roots torn from the earth where a gaping wound shows its former place. Here a rock, moist with swamp-sweat, lichen-covered and set in moss. There a clump of thick-grown cedars, deep shelter for the timid rabbit. All is noiseless, breathless. Not even the squirrel chatters, for it is not long past noon. But farther on comes a dull, low murmuring, scarcely to be heard at first, so nicely does it fit this gentle monotone of silence, yet soon filling the trembling air with overtones that rise and fall and swell again in varying chords. It is the river. A few steps more and you are there, and beside the stream in a fragrant bed of ferns, with one hand caressing the delicate tresses of the maidenhair, and the other dipped among the ripples, you give yourself up, half dozing, to thoughts of the long ago and the far away that seem to float up from the past along the dim windings of the stream. The sun makes dancing spots of dark and light between the fluttering leaves, and throws a changing shadow upon yon deep pool, where a grand old beech, festooned with clematis, leans its gray trunk far over as if to bless the stream whose waters, bubbling swiftly over the pebbles a little higher up, calm themselves here to rest in peace. The wood-thrush sends its plaintive, solitary note of silver-globuled melody from the inmost forest. No other sound, save when a wagon now and then rolls its quick rumble across a bridge, and then is gone like some self-conscious intruder. But luxury like this is the very thief of time. Before you are aware the waves of heat have ceased to form a throbbing air-hive for humming insects, and the cool of early twilight has come on, attended by lengthening shadows. And so home again along the dewy fields, while an orchestra of crickets chirps a happy end beneath the summer stars to the day that is done. It is in ways like this that poets renew their souls, the old their youth, and weary hearts, in sweet release from care, gain strength for life.

_Literary Monthly_, 1887.

QUESTIONINGS

GEORGE L. RICHARDSON '88

There are strange complications in it all,
This life of ours--had I fourfold the wit
That as his share to any man doth fall,
I fear me that I could not fathom it.

This sorrow bringing laughter, and joy tears,
Conflicting things we cannot understand;
This constant longing for great length of years,
That brings but weary limb and feeble hand;

Eyes that are dim, and saddened, lowly life;
These hot-waged wars, squalid with cries of pain,
This joy in contest and this thirst for strife,
In which both suffer, and there is no gain;

Strong love that ere long turns to stronger hate,
Sin leading into good, good into sin--
In very truth do lambs with tigers mate.
The world is wide, and strange things are therein.

_Fortnight_, 1887.

ON BRYANT'S "THANATOPSIS"

GEORGE LYNDE RICHARDSON '88

A great thought came to a great singer's heart,
Out of the grandeur of the changeless hills--
A thought whose greatness e'en in our day fills
Men's minds with nobler feeling. All his art
He lavished on the poem that he wrought,
That it might be, through all the years of time,
An inspiration, to all men, sublime,
And nor for fault of his hand come to naught.
So it hath been. The singer lieth dead;
His words live on. And still the mountains stand,
And all men say who know them, in that land--
And through all ages, it will still be said--
Not gold that perisheth, from deep-hid veins,
They give us, but the thought that aye remains.

_Literary Monthly_, 1887.

SUMMER SONG[1]

TALCOTT M. BANKS '90

Come, friend scholar, cease your bending
Over books with eager gaze;
Time it were such work had ending,--
Well enough for rainy days.
Out with me where sunlight pours,
Life to-day is out of doors!

Busy? Pshaw! what good can reach you
Frowning o'er that dog-eared page?
Yonder rushing brook can teach you
More than half your Classic Age.
Banish Greeks and Siren shores,
Let your thoughts run out of doors!

Rest we here where none can spy us,
Deep in rippling fields of grass;
Scented winds blow softly by us,
Lazy clouds above us pass;
Higher yet my fancy soars--
All my soul is out of doors!

_Literary Monthly_, 1888.

[Footnote 1: Copyright, 1907, by T.M. Banks. With permission.]

THE BACKWARD LOOK[1]

TALCOTT M. BANKS '90

Once on a bright October day,
I took the road whose winding track
Leads up among the hills away
Across Taconic's shaggy back,
Leaving the valley broad and fair
For barren heights in upper air.

At last I stood upon the crest;
The ruddy sun was sinking low,
And all the country to the west
Lay flooded with a golden glow--
A fairyland of misty light,
Unsullied by the touch of night.

I turned, and lo, a sudden change
Had swept across the valley's face.
The shadow of Taconic's range
Had fallen on the lovely place;
And darkness followed thick and fast
Behind the shadow as it passed.

Since then the changeful years have flown
Till now once more I seem to stand
Upon the mountain top alone,
And look abroad upon the land.
But all before is gray and dim,
Half-hidden in the cloud-wrack grim;
While in the Berkshire valley stays
The light that dawned in happier days.

_Literary Monthly_, 1893.

[Footnote 1: Copyright, 1907, by T.M. Banks. With permission.]

SERENADE

ARTHUR OLIVER '93

If all the stars were gems, love,
And all those gems were mine,
I'd give them in exchange, love,
For that dear heart of thine.
But, since the stars so bright, love,
Are neither gems nor mine,
What can I do, but sigh and rue
My luckless lot, and pine,
And gaze on high, where night winds sigh,
Across thy lattice vine?

If all the little birds, love,
That twitter 'mid the dew,
Could sing in words and tell, love,
The love I bear to you,
They would not end their song, love,
The night's long vigil through;
But all the wings that morning brings
Would soar amid the blue,
And float along on waves of song,
With carols sweet and new.

_Literary Monthly_, 1893.

OLD TRINITY

FREDERICK D. GOODWIN '95

Placed 'midst the city's busiest life,
Not a stone's throw from the deadly strife
Of the metropolitan mart,
Old Trinity stands; her spire, like a hand,
Points ever upward; her chimes demand
From the hardened world a heart.

Clustered around her, buried, lie
Many whose names can never die,
Founders of their country's weal:
Patriot churchmen, statesmen, soldiers,
There they sleep who were its moulders;
Sculptured stones their deeds reveal.

Trinity's self was new-born with the nation;
Springing from ashes of desolation,
She helped to forge posterity.
Now she looks from her chosen station,
At pageant, starvation, begg'ry, ovation,
Results of her sons' prosperity.

Within, away from the din and crowd
And the mendicants' cries and the laughter loud,
Of Pleasure in hand with Youth,
Is the silent yet eloquent reign of Peace
And the utterance of words which shall not cease
While the earth has a place for Truth.

When peal on peal the organ's voice
Calls the assembled to rejoice
For blessings unsurpassed,
Or when its milder tones tell Grief,
Then e'en Death's triumph is but brief,
Old Trinity's charm but half is grasped.

Far sweeter it is in the twilights glim,
When the symbolled altar is growing dim,
And the wayward shadows dart,
To watch the golden light stream in
Each lofty window, as though all sin
At its entrance must depart.

Saints' and martyrs' pictured graces,
Illumined by these heavenly traces,
Shine in blue and saffron and red;
But in the sun's last traces, above their faces,
Beam the eyes which no might from the soul effaces,
And the Christ's mock-crowned head.

_Literary Monthly_, 1894.

TWO TRIOLETS OF AUTUMN

KARL E. WESTON '96

'Neath fading leaves and dreary skies,
A late-born rose burst into bloom
And gazed about with sad surprise,
'Neath fading leaves and dreary skies;
Let fall from Summer's bier, it lies
In Autumn's pathway 'mid the gloom
Of fading leaves and dreary skies,
A late-born rose, burst into bloom.

Beside the ever restless sea
Fair Autumn stands. With beckoning hand
She hails the passing days, which flee
Across the ever restless sea,--
Their sealed ears hearing not the plea
Which sea-winds waft from that fair land
Beside the ever restless sea,
Where Autumn stands with beckoning hand.

_Literary Monthly_, 1894.

NANTUCKET

ARTHUR KETCHUM '98

Adrift in taintless seas she dreaming lies,
The island city, time-worn now, and gray,
Her dark wharves ruinous, where once there lay
Tall ships, at rest from far-sea industries.
The busy hand of trade no longer plies
Within her streets. In quiet court and way
The grass has crept--and sun and shadows play
Beneath her elms, in changing traceries;
The years have claimed her theirs, and the still peace
Of wind and sun and mist, blown thick and white,
Has folded her. The voices of the seas
Through many a soft, bright day and brooding night
Have wrought her silence, wide as they, and deep,
And dreaming of the past, she waits--asleep.

_Literary Monthly_, 1897.

THE GYPSY STRAIN

ARTHUR KETCHUM '98

It comes with the autumn's silence,
When great Hills dream apart,
And far blue leagues of distance
Call to the Gypsy-heart.

When all the length of sunny roads,
A lure to restless feet,
Are largesses of goldenrod
And beck of bitter-sweet.

Then the wand'rer in us wakens
And out from citied girth,
To go a-vagabonding down
The wide ways of the Earth.

_Literary Monthly_, 1898.

THE SONG OF THE CAVALIERS

JAMES B. CORCORAN ex-'01

When our sabers rattle merrily against our lances' butt,
And our bugles ring out clearly in the coolness of the dawn,
You can see the guidons waving as the ranks begin to shut,
And the morning sun beams forth on the sabers that are drawn.
Then the bits begin to jangle and our horses paw the air,
When we vault into the saddle and we grasp the bridle-rein;
Of danger we are fearless and for death we do not care,
For we fight for good Don Carlos and the grim grandees of Spain.

So to horse and away,
At the break of day,
With never a thought of fears;
For Spain and the right
We'll die or we'll fight,
Sing ho, for the cavaliers!

As we gallop through the villages or through the sylvan glades,
Merry maid and buxom matron smile and wave as we ride by;
There are broken hearts behind us as well as broken blades,
For the cavaliers are gallants till the war-notes rend the sky.
But when summer breezes waver and grow cold with news of war,
We gird our good swords closer and we arm us for the fight;
Maid and wine cup fade behind us, lance and helmet to the fore,
And we wheel into our battle line for Carlos and the right.

So to horse and away,
At the break of day,
With never a thought of fears;
We'll die or we'll fight,
For Spain and the right;
Sing ho, for the cavaliers

When at last the brazen bugles ripple out the ringing charge,
We rise up in our stirrups and we wave our swords on high,
The dust clouds rise beneath us, and the demons seem at large--
The cavaliers are charging in to conquer or to die.
Grim death may claim his victims from out our whirling ranks,
Our plumes may be down-trodden in the grimy, bloody sod:
The cavaliers will meet their fate without a word of thanks,
But they've died for good Don Carlos, for old Spain, and for their God.

So to horse and away,
At the break of day,
With never a thought of fears;
We'll die or we'll fight
For Spain and the right;
Sing ho, for the cavaliers!

_Literary Monthly_, 1897.

RECOMPENSE

CHARLES P. PARKHURST '98

At dawn he toils the steep to gain the flower,
The lure that beckons from the height afar;
Noon wanes to eve, the bloom has fled, but lo!
High in the purple night there gleams a star.

_Literary Monthly_, 1897.

CERVERA AT ANNAPOLIS

HENRY R. CONGER '99

They crowded round to see him, great and small,
The conquered admiral of a conquered fleet,
Shorn of his glories, thrown from his high seat,
Great by the very greatness of his fall.
Hope, honor, fortune, lost beyond recall,
Greyhaired and bitter-hearted; doomed to meet
His country's censure, sharper than defeat;
His foeman's pity--that was worst of all.

He heard them faintly, as one hears, amuse,
Amid his vision voices far away
That call him from sad dreams to sadder day;
For he was where he would be could he choose,
At peace beneath the waters of the bay,
Where all his ships lay silent with their crews.

_Literary Monthly_, 1898.

THE ANSWER

DWIGHT W. MARVIN '01

I wondered why the western hills were always smiling so,
Until one evening when the heavens were like a fiery sea;
For, as the Sun crept down the sky amid the sunset-glow,
He paused upon the western hills, and kissed them tenderly.

_Literary Monthly_, 1900.

ONE OF THE PLODDERS

HARRY JAMES SMITH '02

Through the gathering gloom of a summer evening a young man walked wearily up the dusty road toward the Waring farmhouse. In each hand he carried a brimming pail and as he stepped along the milk in them flopped softly against their tin sides. Out from the white streak of sky behind his figure stood strongly relieved in silhouette, large, stooping, dispirited. The whole attitude was one of extreme fatigue, though for the silence and automatic movement of him you might almost think him a piece of ambulatory mechanism. Once or twice, to be sure, he turned his head, perhaps to look off over the cultivated fields and to calculate the labor still to be put on them, or possibly to draw a sort of unconscious, tired satisfaction from these encouraging results of so many weary hours. At any rate his pace never altered. Overhead the large maple trees reached their glooming branches in a mysterious, impenetrable canopy that rustled softly in the dusky silence. For the night was still, despite the squeaking of katydids and the distant peep of frogs. Along the sides of the road as it stretched on ahead like a brownish ribbon and vanished under the farther trees, ran stone walls, low and massive, and sharply hemming in the dusty highway from the cool, green fields beyond.

David Waring was not consciously aware of anything in the world, but his whole body was alive to the anticipation of the near end of his day's work. A few minutes more and he should have set the milk into the coolers, thrown off his overalls, and washed himself in cold spring water--and then he could drop into a chair on the quiet porch and take his ease.

Quite unexpectedly just ahead of him a young woman stepped out from the shadow of a tree and sprang lightly into the road. "Hello, David!" she said, waiting for him to come up to her. "You look as tired as a plough-horse. What's the matter?"

"Well, I am, Janet. It doesn't hardly seem as if I could push one foot ahead of another. Here I've been working all day long, and only just done at eight or nine o'clock."

"Poor boy," answered the girl. "Come and sit down a few minutes while I talk to you. I didn't go round to the house because I knew your father and mother would be off at meeting."

David needed no urging. He placed the pails of milk by the roadside and together the two sat down by the stone wall.

"I'd let you put your arm around me if you didn't smell so cowy," said Janet with a little laugh.

"That's not my fault," he answered. "Somebody's got to milk the poor old beasts, and I don't know who would if I didn't. That doesn't make me like it, though. Oh Janet, when I feel as tired as I do to-night I get terribly sickened with all this humdrum life on the farm! It's just work, work, from morning till night and when you get done you're too tired to read or talk or do anything but just go to sleep like a big ox. If it weren't for father's and mother's sakes I believe I'd quit the old place in a minute. If I could only go off somewhere--anywhere, only to be out of sight of the farm!"

"Well, I like that, Mr. Waring," said the girl, with a look half indignant, half smiling. "Is _that_ the only thing that keeps you here? I guess perhaps it's time for me to go home now."

"Oh, Janet, don't take it that way! You know what I mean. I'm just sick and tired of the whole business, and I wish to goodness I could throw it over. By the way, I suppose you know my brother's coming home from Yale to-morrow. It's almost two years since I've seen him except for a week or two. I guess he'll have changed some; his letters sound so, anyway."

"That's just what I came down to ask you about. I heard it yesterday and I'd be awfully glad if you two would come up to supper day after to-morrow--that's Sunday. I'm so anxious to see him because I know he'll have lots to tell us about college and the city and things like that. Oh, David, I get tired too of always staying here in the country and teaching school forever, when there are so many things to learn and so much to see off there in the world. That's what Loren can tell us about. It'll be next best to getting off somewhere one's self."

During the course of the conversation the streak of white in the west had turned to gray and the night was rapidly closing down. The girl jumped to the ground; "Good-night," she said, as she started away, "I'll see you both Sunday,--sure, now!"

David picked up his milk-pails and completed the work of the day. A little later he had seated himself on the porch. He felt discontented and unhappy though he could not have told exactly why. But one thing was evident--he was not anticipating Loren's home-coming with much pleasure. He felt, in fact, a certain reluctance, or rather timidity, about meeting this younger brother of his who knew so much and talked so much, and seemed to enjoy himself so thoroughly. He anticipated keenly the difference that two years must have brought between them, and dreaded the time when they should be put side by side once more and compared. For David, too--the older of the boys by a year--had expected to go to college and till the time came had never doubted the expediency of it. But, as is so often the case, that merry-making force in human affairs that we call Circumstance--or is it Providence?--had it fixed up otherwise. Mr. Waring had suddenly lighted upon chronic poor health as a daily companion on the walk of life, and his time was so much engrossed therewith that David seemed called upon--nay, impelled--to become the main-stay of the farm; Loren was still too young; financial affairs were far from encouraging; Mrs. Waring looked constantly to her older son for advice and assistance; in short, the golden gate of the future seemed to be drawing to, without any voluntary effort of his own. Yet he had often recalled since then the night--that breathless night in August four years ago--when he and his dearest ambition had had their last battle, and he had forced it to cover. "Loren shall have the best chance I can give him," he had said to himself, with his teeth gritted, "and God help me to stick it out here on the farm!" Thus it was, that, as usual, Dame Circumstance had won out by a good margin.