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.

And now Loren had been two years at Yale and was coming home for the summer. Loren had learned a vast deal at college; among other scraps of intelligence he had discovered that his family were a little outlandish, and that Melton was altogether too slow a place for a rational being like himself to exist in except, at the best, for a few summer weeks. His latest letter, received only yesterday, was a characteristic one, and David had unintentionally resented its tone of breezy self-assurance: "... I suppose I shall show up at fair Melton," it had read, "about 2:35 on Saturday, unless, that is, I happen to get a few days' invite to New York. Of course David will be down to meet me and bring my trunk up." The words were innocent enough, but they had insinuated their way into his mind and rankled there like an evil thing. "Yes, of course I will be down," he said to himself somewhat bitterly; "of course I will, that's to be expected. And bring up his trunk for him; yes, that's just what I like—the chance to fetch Loren's trunk, and I like his way of taking it all for granted, too."

The mental transition to the matter of Janet's invitation was a natural one. He began to wish that she hadn't been in such a hurry about giving it. What could she want of Loren? He wasn't anything to her. Why did she have to be all the time hankering after new friends? "New friends!" With a slight internal start David realized that only three years ago Loren had never been away from home. "New friends!" Why, Janet had known them both ever since the old days of skip-rope and hide and seek! What more natural than that she should want to see her old play-fellow again? Why should he complain? Hadn't she said once, "I love you, David," and wasn't that enough to make him trust her?

A little way down the road he heard the step of some one approaching and in a moment the shape of a man grew visible through the darkness. He turned, opened the gate, and stepped to the porch. In his hand he carried a suit-case. This he set down heavily and approached the door. David sprang to his feet. "Why Loren, is that you? We weren't expecting you to-night."

"Well, how are you, old boy?" cried the new-comer. "It's bully good to see you again. No, I didn't expect to get up to-night, but there wasn't much doing at college and I didn't get my invite, so I thought I might as well come on home. Where are the folks?"

"Out at meeting just now, but they'll be back in a little while. Sit down, you must be tired."

Loren took a chair and sunk into it with a sigh of comfort. "You're right I am. I tell you it's hard work to walk a mile and a half with a suit-case. And all the time you were just sitting comfortably out here on the veranda listening to the katydids." He drew out his pipe and lit it. "Well, how are all the folks? Same as usual?"

"I guess so. Father's failing a little, and mother worries a good deal, but keeps pretty well."

"That's good. They must be mighty glad to have one of us at home to look after things. Lord, but I've often imagined you outdoors driving around in the open air and enjoying life when I've been plugging up for some beastly exam. But, apropos of the health bulletin, etc., is Janet Manning here still, or has she gone off to college?"

"No, she's teaching school at the Corners. I saw her a minute to-night, and she invited us up to supper there on Sunday."

"Good! That's something like. Shall be much charmed to see the little schoolma'am again. She's a slick little girl—at least she used to be. In my opinion she's wasting her time up here in the woods. Why, that girl's got ability, and I call it a shame for her to bury herself in the country just for her mother's account. But say, isn't that a wagon coming?"

The two went down to the gate and stood there waiting for the buggy to draw up. When Mr. and Mrs. Waring were out, David took the horse to the barn and unharnessed in the dark. Then he reentered the house, and without saying anything more than "Good-night," went up to his room.

II

It was late in the afternoon of an August day. From the high gable windows of the barn the yellow sunlight shot through the dusty air in a long, straight shaft and rested on the lower part of the haymow, gilding every dry wisp with a temporary and fatuous splendor. Elsewhere in the barn it was already half dark. On one side the hay rose up in a tremendous heap almost to the roof, where it vanished dimly in the dusky shadows. Opposite were the cow-stables, five of them in a row, each occupant munching her cud contentedly and now and then giving vent to a soft, self-satisfied low. From one of the stalls could be heard the rhythmical squirt of milk against the milking-pail, for David was engaged upon his evening work. On a rickety chair near the hay-loft sat Janet, holding a timid little barn cat in her lap and stroking it nervously. She was speaking in a voice that betrayed considerable agitation.

"Well, I'm just going to leave it with you to decide, for I'm not ready to do it myself. But it does seem to me that it's the chance of a lifetime. It's just a question of whether I shall always stay on here teaching district school, or see a little of the world and have a chance to go on studying."

She stopped, and a moment of strained silence ensued, broken only by the sound of the milking. David pressed his head against the flank of the cow and choked back something in his throat. Then he managed to speak.

"Of course, Janet," he said, with an attempt at composure. "I can see how it must attract you—this opportunity of going off to college, and I don't mean to put anything in your way. Such questions a person has to decide for one's self, and I don't see how I can give you any help."

"Yes, there you are again. You just won't say yes or no; but I am sure all the time that you don't really want me to go. You'd like to keep me here at home, just an ignorant, stupid country girl. Why don't you want me to make something of myself, David? I know I've got ability, and you know it as well as I do, but it isn't of any use to me here. Wouldn't you feel proud of me if I went off and did something worth while?"

David could not answer at once. He sat with his eyes shut, his knees pressed rigidly against the pail, and against his head he felt the warm, throbbing pulse of the animal in front of him. Upon his mind a picture was forcing itself with cruel insistence. It was the Janet of a year hence, well-dressed, sedate, intellectual, with all her new college interests to talk of; and side by side with this he saw himself—what would he be? Just the same as ever, only a little more awkward and out of date, and when he talked it would be of—yes, his cows, and the new pig, and the price of potatoes! It was Loren who would be suited to her then; it was they who would sit under the trees together and the farmer could go about his chores. The impossibility of her continuing to love him struck him with a new pang of conviction, and he felt helpless before it.

"Why don't you say something, David?" asked the girl, rapping her foot on the floor and unconsciously pulling the kitten's fur. "You're not angry with me, are you?"

David saw that he must speak, and he determined to dissimulate no longer. "No, Janet, but can't you see how it must look to me? How can you expect me to be happy over it? Do you suppose, dear, that you could feel toward me, after a year at college, just as you do now? Don't you see how it would separate us and you'd have all your new friends and studies to take up your time and I'd just be plodding along here in the woods like a clod of turf? How could you ever keep on loving me? Don't you see, Janet, how it sort o' breaks my heart to say yes?"

The jets of milk shot into the pail with an angry rapidity. The bar of sunlight lay almost horizontally now across the upper emptiness of the barn, transforming the thick-hung cobwebs into golden draperies and accentuating the twilight gloom below. Janet threw the kitten out of her lap and, jumping from the chair, walked nervously to the window and looked out absently upon the meadow below.

"Well, I supposed it would come to that," she said, with some indignation in her voice. "It's nice to feel that you can't trust me out of your sight. Don't you think that if you really loved me as you say you'd be as glad as I was that I could get a better education? But of course, if you're afraid to trust me, why, I suppose I can give it up."

The strain of decision had been a hard one for Janet, and she was now on the verge of giving way under it. Her shoulders shook, and she put her face in her hands. David heard her sobbing softly.

"Janet," he said, "if you think that this is going to be a valuable thing for you, I'm not going to say a word against it. You know that every wish I've got is for your good, and that's God's truth. If you think it's best to go, I'm going to try to think so too, and I'll do everything I can to make you happy."

Janet had left the window and came toward him, a joyful smile breaking through her tears. "You are a dear, good boy, and I love you," she said, and allowed him to kiss her. He held her long in his big arms and his own eyes filled with burning tears.

He could not banish the thought that this might be the last time.

III

The gray desolation of a March afternoon brooded out over the wide meadows, out over the dim woods beyond, and still on to the half-visible hills in the distance, where it merged itself imperceptibly into a low, lead-colored sky. Though the rain was not falling, everything dripped with the damp. In front of the Waring farmhouse the road, wallowing with fat mud, stretched off in a dirty streak under the glistening limbs of the maples. The door of the house opened and David came out. His mother followed him anxiously.

"David, I hope it isn't bad news," she asked, laying her hand lightly on his shoulder. "Can't you tell me about it?"

"Not now, mother. It's nothing very unexpected; I'll tell you later, but I'd rather wait a little while." He pushed open the gate and stepped out into the road, his heavy boots sinking in to half their height.

The mother watched him with strained attention as he set off towards the barn. There was a sort of savage aimlessness in his gait. His shoulders were bent forward, his hands thrust deep into his pockets, and he looked neither to the one side nor the other of the road. At the barnyard gate he seemed to hesitate a second, then turned in, and the small, gray-haired woman on the step sighed and went back into the house.

David strode deliberately through the yard and out of the gate on the other side—the one that opened on the sloping meadow behind the barn. Not a living thing was in sight. A chill, white fog had slowly settled over the land, obliterating outline and color, toning everything down to a monotonous sameness of appearance—a flat, unrelieved vacancy. David walked on mechanically, unmindful of any destination or definite purpose; a dumb bitterness wrung his heart, and, in comparison with that, all that was external and objective seemed unaccountable. Involuntarily he thrust his hand into his coat and drew out a letter. He had read it twice already.

* * * * *

"My dear David,—I hardly know how I am to tell you what I know I must tell you—and if not now, certainly before many more weeks pass. Let me admit then first of all that you were right in your anticipation of what college life would do for me. It has changed my ways of looking at things more than I can tell you, and things that once seemed very beautiful to me are so no longer. This was inevitable and we need not regret it, for I know that the aggregate enjoyment of life has been increased, at least potentially. You may know that your brother Loren spent part of his Christmas vacation here, and he has just been here again for a flying visit. Need I tell you the result, David? I think you foresaw it long ago, and I cannot of course feel sad that things have come about in this way, though I realize that for a time, at least, it may be hard for you to understand it. But there are many interests we have in common, he and I; I know that you will see sometime that we were made for each other and that you will be happy with us in our great happiness.

"I doubt whether this news will much surprise you, for I know, from the tenor of your latest letters, you have noticed a change and have been suspicious of the truth...."

* * * * *

Ah, yes, he had noticed it and had had suspicions; but to have it come to this, and so suddenly—it was more than he could bear. His throat ached and his hands were wet with perspiration. He looked up into the sky and saw nothing there to help him—nothing but a roofless expanse of drizzling gray fog. Not a bird chirped in the distance. The brook down below him ran on silently without an audible ripple. Everything was silent and motionless. If only a cow would low or a hen would cackle back in the barnyard, life would be a bit more tolerable. It was as if all the world had become soulless and dead.

How he had loved her! ... No other thought could find entrance in his mind ... and now, it was all over. She belonged to some one else and had left him without a thought, almost, of the pain it was going to bring him. "Hard to understand!" She was wrong: he had understood it from the first, and far better than she. Had he not told her so that afternoon when they sat together in the barn? But understanding it made it no more easy to bear. He wondered whether he could bear it. He seemed so cruelly alone with his sorrow. The silence seemed shouting at him.

Suddenly, without knowing why, he looked back to the barn. A little figure, wrapped in a plaid shawl, was coming towards him: it was his mother. A sharp thrill of tenderness ran through him. "Poor little mother," he said softly, "you are longing to help me," and, somewhat ashamed of the way in which he had left her recently, he turned and walked back to meet her.

"Come with me to the barn," she said, and together they returned, silently, each timid of the other. Entering the building they sat down on the hay, side by side. "Read that, mother," he said, and handed her the letter. She glanced it through, and then, taking his hand in hers, faltered gently, "My poor boy! I can guess what it must mean to you."

He put his head down in her lap and sobbed like a child, while she stroked his hair and face and spoke shy words of sympathy.

"David," she said, "it was for your father and me that you gave up college. Perhaps you think we don't appreciate it, because we never say much. I know what it has cost you and how nobly you have stuck to your duty, and you know that in God's sight whatever may come of it you have done the kindest thing."

"Oh, but mother, that doesn't make it any easier to lose Janet. She was so much to me, and we were going to be so happy together."

"Hush, little boy, you mustn't take it so hard. Perhaps some day you'll see that it was for the best."

The afternoon light was fading and the rain was beginning to fall softly outside. In the dimming light the two continued sitting there together, hardly speaking a word, for what comfort could words bring? And slowly a vague peacefulness began to fall upon his heart under the gentle touch of his mother, and rising, he kissed her silently and went out to his work.

Literary Monthly, 1902.



THE ENDITING OF LETTERS

STUART P. SHERMAN '03

"Now for enditing of Letters: alas, what need wee much adoe about a little matter?"

In a letter to Miss Sara Hennel, George Eliot writes that "there are but two kinds of regular correspondence possible—one of simple affection, which gives a picture of all the details, painful and pleasurable, that a loving heart pines after ..., and one purely moral and intellectual, carried on for the sake of ghostly edification in which each party has to put salt on the tails of all sorts of ideas on all sorts of subjects." These two classes embrace, perhaps, the great bulk of letters, but George Eliot says there is a third class to which her correspondence with Miss Hennel belongs—one of impulse. Strictly speaking, all of the letters which really belong as such to literature come under this last head. The result of a perfect fusion of the two other styles, they exhibit a sparkle, a pungency, and lightness of touch, which take the curse from mere gossip, supple the joints of intellectual disquisition, and mark unmistakably the epistolary artist. The letter-writer, no less than the poet, is born, not made, and his art, though for the most part unconscious, is no less an art. The expression of every sentiment, the choice of every word, however random it may seem, is determined for the born enditer of epistles by a sense of fitness so exquisite that its niceties of distinction escape analysis and only its more general principles can be enunciated.

The most vital of these principles is pretty generally observed. Thackeray perceives it when at the close of a delightful letter to Mrs. Brookfield he exclaims, "Why, this is almost as good as talk!" He was right: it was written talk. If read aloud with pauses for the correspondent's reply, the perfect letter would make perfect conversation. It should call up the voice, gesture, and bearing of the writer. Though it may be more studied than oral speech, it must appear no less impromptu. This, indeed, is its essential charm, that it contains the mind's first fruits with the bloom on, that it exhale carelessly the mixed fragrance of the spirit like a handful of wild flowers not sorted for the parlor table but, as gathered among the fields, haphazard, with here a violet, there a spice of mint, a strawberry blossom from the hillside, and a sprig of bittersweet. This is the opportunity for the clergyman to show that he is not all theologian, but part naturalist; the farmer that he is not all ploughman, but part philosopher. This is the place for little buds of sentiment, short flights of poetry, wise sermons all in three lines, odd conceits, small jests rubbing noses with deacon-browed moralities; in short, for every fine extravagance in which the mind at play delights. Sickness and sorrow, too, and death, if spoken of reverently and bravely, must not be denied a place. So we shall have a letter now all grave, now all gay, but generally, if it be a good letter, part grave, part gay, just as the mingled threads are clipped from the webs of life.

That such a letter cannot be written with white gloves goes without saying. The first requisite is freedom from stiffness. The realm of good letters is a republic in which no man need lift his hat to another. It is hail-fellow well met, or not met at all. So when the humble address their superiors, or when children write to austere grandfathers, they suffer from an awkwardness of mental attitude which is the paralysis of all spontaneity. Before the indispensable ease can exist, certain relations of equality must be established. But there are some whose fountains of speech, in letters as in conversation, lie forever above the line of perpetual snow. They never thaw out. Bound by a sort of viscosity of spirits, that peculiar stamp of the Anglo-Saxon temperament, they are incapable of getting their thoughts and emotions under way; with the best will in the world, genuine warmth of feeling, minds stocked with information on all subjects, they are never fluent. The man with no ear must not hope to be a musician, nor the man with no fluency a letter-writer. Yet this is not all. You will find some at perfect ease in conversation who, touching pen to paper, exhibit the affected primness commonly ascribed to the maiden aunt. They have not learned that this is a place where words must speak for themselves without comment of inflection, gesture of the hand, or interpreting smile. Here to be unaffected one must take thought. As on the stage a natural hue must be obtained by unnatural means, so in the writing of letters one must a trifle overdo in order to do but ordinarily. A word which rings on the lips with frank cordiality will stare coldly from the written page and must be heightened to avoid offense. This is a license requiring the exercise of moderation and the utmost tact. Not all expressions suitable for conversation need reinforcement in black and white. In speaking one frequently raps out a phrase whose literalness one's eyes warn the listener to question. These must be toned down or glossed. An example of the toned down variety, which illustrates as well men's fondness for assailing their friends with opprobrious epithet, is offered by Darwin when he writes, "I cannot conclude without telling you that of all blackguards you are the greatest and best." If Darwin had been talking face to face with Fox, he would doubtless have called him a blooming blackguard outright.

A writer in a journal of psychology points out the strong psychic link existing between a certain short expletive of condemnation and a refractory collar-button. These words seem to come at times charged with the very marrow of the mind, and, if the letters of a man who occasionally indulges in them be wholly purged of them, the letters lose one of their most distinctive characteristics. The point to be made is, that the personal word is all-important, that till the fact is related to the writer, it is dead. If we want news, we can consult the dailies; but in letters facts are little, ideas about facts everything. That is to say, all events, especially the more trifling, should be shown through the colored glass of the writer's personality. What concerns you is not what happened, but what relations the happening bears to you and your correspondent.

When once the personal vein is struck, nothing is so easy as to find a theme for a letter. The materials are only too plentiful if the eyes and heart are open to receive them. Stevenson wrote that he scarcely pulled a weed in his garden without pondering some fit phrase to report the fact to his friend Colvin, and we may be sure that the weed was not allowed to wither, but when it was transplanted, flourished again and reached its destination in a veritable Pot of Basil. No great events are necessary; the plainest incident, the morning's shopping, is as good as a Pan-American exposition for ideas to crystallize about, since exactly in proportion as an event is embedded in opinion, comment, and feeling, must its value as an epistolary item be rated. While the born letter-writer is driving a nail or polishing a shoe, a thought apropos of his occupation or of stars, perhaps, drops complete and perfect like ripe fruit in an orchard. It matters little; seen through the eyes of a friend, all homely things are invested with an extrinsic interest and a new glory not their own.

... By the very nature of the composition a mean man cannot possibly write a good letter. When we cast about for a perfect exemplar of the epistolary style, we must of necessity look among the high-souled men—Cowper, Lamb, FitzGerald, Hearn—for where else shall we find one to stand the test of self-revelation? Happily, one of the blithest, manliest, completest spirits of our times was a matchless writer of letters—Stevenson. Aching for absolute honesty of style and making clearness almost synonomous with good morals, he has given us in the Vailima collection and in the two larger volumes of his correspondence an almost unexampled self-revelation. The man Stevenson is in them, "his essence and his sting." The grip of his hand and the look of his eye lose none of their force in the transparent medium through which they are constrained to pass. Knowing that a man who constantly gives his best finds his best constantly growing better, he never hoarded his ideas for publication, but poured his intellectual riches into a note to a friend as freely as if each line were coining him gold. It results that the lover of Stevenson would almost prefer to give up all the romances rather than the letters. For they feel that in this correspondence, besides finding the qualities which distinguish the other works, they have met face to face and known personally the romancer, the essayist, the poet, and above all the man who, ridden by an incubus of disease, spoke always of the joy of living, the man who knew hours of bitterness but none of flinching, the man who grappled with his destiny undaunted, and, when death hunted him down in a South Sea island, fell gallantly and gazing unabashed into "the bright eyes of danger."

Stevenson approached close to the beau ideal of epistolary art. When we and our friends have achieved it, distance will be annihilated and there will be no such thing as separation. We shall draw from our little box a small white packet, and, though Nostradamus may offer us every secret of magician or alchemist in exchange for it, we shall refuse offhand. How shall he lure us with a shadow, a ghostly visitant, savoring of the pit and summoned only by the most marrow-freezing incantations? Here in our hand is a mysterious, more potent charm, bringing us the warm, human personality of the man. We are not spiritualists, yet here sealed in the white packet is an incorporal presence. Given but a mastery of the twenty-six signs and their combinations, and lo, the heart of our friend served up in Boston bond! Then, as for enditing of letters, we shall rise up and call them blessed who have made "much ado about a little matter."

Literary Monthly, 1901.



GREYLOCK

MAX EASTMAN '05

This whole, far-reaching host of ancient hills That all thy kingdom's rugged boundary fills, Yields thee unrivalled thy supremacy. 'Tis not by chance that they thus kneel to thee; Those scars, that but increase thy grandeur, tell Of battles thou hast fought—and hast fought well, For, conquered at thy feet, two giants lie Who once did dare their sovereign to defy. When earth with sea, and earth with earth, and sea With sea, all mingled, fought for mastery, Then didst thou meet thy foes, and by thy might Didst win, and since hath kept, thy regal right.

Literary Monthly, 1901.



TO SIDNEY LANIER

MAX EASTMAN '05

Thy name is not the highest in thy art, Though music sweet thou singest in thy songs That unto thee alone of all belongs, Uplifting Love in every burdened heart;

Thou hast not left us perfect poetry; But thou hast left by far a greater thing, A poem such as man did never sing— Thine own brave life, a lifelong victory.

Literary Monthly, 1902.



THE LIFTING OF THE CLOUDS

SHEPARD ASHMAN MORGAN '06

All day long a reeking mist had been rolling across the valley, at times all but obscuring the Peak where it rose between its pair of flanking hills. Sifting clouds had surged and seethed in the Cleft, as those who dwelt in its vicinity called the interval between the two hills and the loftier and more distant Peak, and rose now and then barely enough to reveal the greater mountain, but never yet had quite cleared the summit. The mist had slimed the whole world with a coating of wet, and when the wind chanced to set the bare limbs of the trees to swaying, the drops would spatter on the ground and scarcely be absorbed, so waterlogged was the earth.

Mrs. Trent rolled up her knitting in a napkin, picked a few stray bits of yarn from her black dress, and stepped to the window. She looked out across the valley toward the Cleft to see if perchance the clouds would open enough to permit her a view of the Peak. Not once, but many times that day had she arisen from her work to search for a glimpse of the mountain, but every time she had failed.

"No, it's hidden, still hidden," she murmured half aloud. "It is hard to be shut up here with my thoughts,—with such thoughts. I wish the clouds would lift and let me see the Peak. Then I am sure that things would not seem so dark. If I could only get one glimpse, I would feel almost, yes, almost as though Doctor McMurray had been here and had told me he was sorry."

She stood looking out the window for a time, but the clouds only gathered more heavily in the Cleft and the Peak remained shrouded in the mist. At last she turned wearily back toward her chair, and was about to resume her knitting when her ear caught the sound of wheels pausing before the house. She hastened across the room toward the door and threw it open with a gesture of fear, as though she had been anticipating the coming of unwelcome visitors and now had reason to suppose that they had arrived. The tremor of suspense, however, quickly passed, for she saw outside no less a person than Doctor McMurray himself.

"Doctor," she called, "put your horse in the barn and come in. It does my heart good to see you."

Presently the door opened and the old minister's face appeared, that face which had looked in at every house in the valley whenever trouble brooded there, and always had brought with it good cheer and hope for now close upon half-a-century.

"A wet day, Mrs. Trent, a wet day. But seems to me there are signs of clearing. It is always much pleasanter to look for fair weather than for foul, don't you think so?"

Mrs. Trent nodded.

"Doctor McMurray," she said, "I was almost afraid to go to the door when I heard you drive up; I thought the lawyers might be coming already."

"The lawyers?" he echoed, "What, can they be troubling you again?"

"Yes, I got a letter from the district attorney's office yesterday saying that he would send a couple of men out to-day."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Mrs. Trent, for I know it will be hard for you to go over the thing again. I had hoped that when your husband's trial was over they would let you alone. Now that poor Jacob has paid the biggest price a man can pay, it seems that common decency ought to keep them from worrying you about the matter any more."

"Well," she said, clasping her hands and looking absently out the window, "I presume they want to make quite sure. Mrs. Withey's case is coming up again the first of the week, you know, and there must be no mistake."

"But I can't see how there can be any mistake," exclaimed the doctor. "At Jacob's trial everything was so clear, his guilt was so fixed, that there seemed no chance for a mistake. Mrs. Trent, it looked to me, prejudiced in favor of your husband as I was, that there could be no doubt that Jacob gave old Mr. Withey the arsenic and that Mrs. Withey was his equally guilty accomplice. I think this second trial must only be a repetition of the first, and that Mrs. Withey must be found the murderess of Andrew Withey, just as Jacob Trent was proven murderer."

Mrs. Trent leaned forward in her chair. Her hands were clenched and every muscle in her frail body was drawn tense. The look in her eyes startled the good doctor, and, thinking that he had recalled too harshly the ugliness of her husband's crime, hastened to make amends.

"Mrs. Trent," he said, "I am sorry that I spoke so. It was cruel of me."

"No, no," the woman answered thickly, "I am used to that, it doesn't shock me to hear so much about Jacob now. But tell me, doctor, tell me, are you sure she will not get off? Will they treat her as they did Jacob?"

"What, Mrs. Trent, you surely wouldn't wish trouble to any fellow creature if it could be avoided, would you?"

"Doctor McMurray," replied Mrs. Trent in a very low voice which seemed to come from her inmost soul, "Doctor McMurray, that woman robbed me of my husband, of Jacob, and then led him to a murderer's grave. That is so. Do you know, now that so many weeks have gone by since they took Jacob away, sometimes I feel that he is true to me somewhere, and that she, that woman, was the one who led him on to do wrong. You ask me if I would see any fellow creature suffer. I answer no; but I say too that that woman has no claim to be fellow creature to any human being. She robbed me of my husband."

For a time the two sat in silence. The rain continued to drip, drip from the eaves, and the Cleft was still clogged with mist. Then the old doctor broke the silence.

"I am afraid we do wrong, Mrs. Trent, in brooding over these troubles of ours. Heaven knows you have provocation. There seems to be no doubt but that your husband gave arsenic to old Mr. Withey, and it seems the more grievous when we think that the natural ailments of the old man must soon have hurried him across the Great River in any case. It is also true that he did it for the love of a woman whose youth and beauty he conceived to have won him heart and soul. But, Mrs. Trent, it is also a fact that we are here to live above these things, hard as they may seem, and to forgive those who do us ill."

Mrs. Trent rose from her chair and stepped toward the window which looked out toward the Peak. Her hands, which she had folded behind her back, worked convulsively.

"The Peak," she said at last. "The Peak is covered with clouds; I cannot see. Forgive—forgive her? All is cloudy, I cannot see."

Doctor McMurray, being no common man, said not a word. He softly rose and took his stand beside Mrs. Trent at the window. For some time the two stood looking out over the valley, watching the heavy, leaden clouds as they banked themselves up against the opposite hillside. The rain continued to trickle from the eaves, the only sound audible above the breathing of the man and woman. At last Doctor McMurray broke the silence.

"It seems to me the clouds aren't lying quite so low on the hills as they were. I wouldn't be surprised if it was going to clear up."

Mrs. Trent looked at the old man for a moment, and saw his meaning.

"Perhaps," she said doubtfully, "perhaps."

Doctor McMurray moved away from the window and began to draw on his overcoat.

"Why, you're not going, doctor?" exclaimed Mrs. Trent with a note of distress in her voice, as her eye took in his action.

"Yes, I'm sorry, Mrs. Trent, but I must look in at old Mr. Gebhart's on the way down. The poor man has stomach trouble, I believe—they say it's just the same thing that Mr. Withey had—and I think he'll be looking for me."

"Doctor, you're so kind," Mrs. Trent interjected. "You're always keeping an eye out for the unfortunate. But look here. I've got some medicine out here in the pantry, some Epsom salts, which they used to come and get for old Mr. Withey. They used to tell me it did him a lot of good. I wish you could wait till I get a little for Mr. Gebhart."

Mrs. Trent hastened from the room, and Doctor McMurray heard her moving pans and bottles on the shelves as though she were in search of the medicine. Suddenly the sound ceased; he waited a minute or two, pacing uneasily up and down the room, with the thought of the sick old man heavy upon his mind. At last he called:

"Mrs. Trent, can't I help you? Don't trouble if you can't find it easily."

No answer reached his ears for a moment. Then Mrs. Trent emerged from the pantry walking unsteadily, as though she carried a terrific weight. Doctor McMurray was at her side in an instant, and led her to a chair.

"Tell me," he urged, "what is it? What is the trouble?"

Mrs. Trent covered her face with her hands, and her slender figure bent silently before the strength of her emotion.

"Look," she moaned at last; "go and look for yourself. There are two of them, two."

Doctor McMurray obeyed. He went into the pantry, and there on a shelf stood two wide-mouthed bottles, very much alike save that one had never been opened. He looked at them in silent wonderment, not knowing for the instant what message they conveyed. He picked them up and read the labels; then he had an inkling of what they meant, for one was marked "Arsenic," the other "Epsom Salts." He went back to Mrs. Trent.

"You think there has been a mistake?" he said softly.

Mrs. Trent raised her head from her hands. Her voice was strained and unnatural as she answered:

"I know there has been a mistake, and I know that I made it."

"Tell me why."

"It is very simple. They sent up from Mr. Withey's that last night for some Epsom salts in a great hurry. I knew there must be some great need, so I rushed to the pantry. Jacob wasn't at home. I reached to the top shelf and pulled down a bottle, one of those bottles. In my hurry I didn't look at the label, but poured the little white crystals out in a paper, and they took them away. Then I put the bottle back in its place and went on with my work. In the morning I heard Mr. Withey was dead."

"But the arsenic—the arsenic," interposed the doctor. "How did it get there?"

"Heaven knows; you remember Jacob used to get it once in a while to keep his horses in condition. I presume he got a fresh bottle of it about the same time I got some more Epsom salts, and they were both put up there on the top shelf together. It is all too plain. I got the bottles mixed and opened the wrong one."

"And so Jacob was innocent?"

"Yes, and I could have saved him if I had known in time. Oh, Jacob, Jacob," she moaned, compressing a world of remorse into the words. "And it was my mistake—my mistake!"

"Then Mrs. Withey is innocent, too," said Doctor McMurray. "Don't you make it out so?"

Mrs. Trent looked up sharply. It seemed as though she had for the moment forgotten her lesser trouble in the new consciousness of the greater. The mention of the other woman's name brought back all the profound sense of wrong which she knew she had suffered at her hands.

"Mrs. Withey—innocent!" she gasped.

"Yes, she is innocent, and you have the power of saving her life."

"Doctor McMurray, that woman robbed me of my husband—both of his love and of his memory." Mrs. Trent was in deadly earnest.

"But—she is innocent, and you can save her from a wretch's death," the old man repeated.

"Save her—her, who stands in my mind for all that I ought to hate?"

"Mrs. Trent," Doctor McMurray said in a low voice, "you ought to hate no-one, not even if he uses you as Mrs. Withey has used you. If we keep on hating the clouds will never lift."

Mrs. Trent rose heavily from her chair and labored from her window that she might look out across the valley toward the Peak. Her voice was hoarse as she answered:

"Oh, I'm afraid the clouds will never lift. The hatred of that woman is like a fog which closes in upon my soul, and shuts off every beam of sunshine. I can't see through it, and the heaviness of it chokes me. The clouds will never lift."

The old minister came up beside her, and stood looking for a time out toward the Peak. The mist which all day had hung so low around the foot of the hills had risen appreciably, and now the Cleft itself was beginning to clear, revealing the dark base of the Peak itself. A single ray of sunshine shot out of the west and struck straight into the Cleft.

"Look, look, Mrs. Trent," exclaimed Doctor McMurray. "The Peak is beginning to show. Don't you think the weather will clear? Ah, it must clear, it must before they come, before the lawyers come. Tell me, do you not think it will?"

Mrs. Trent's face was very pale. Her eyes gleamed very large and feverishly bright from beneath her lashes, as they searched the opposite side of the valley. For some moments she kept silent, and for the second time that afternoon there was no sound in the room save the labored breathing of the man and woman. At last there became audible the slowly increasing creak of a carriage, and the splashing of a horse's hoofs through the sea of mud in the roadway. Doctor McMurray heard, and he knew that Mrs. Trent heard also.

"Mrs. Trent," he said softly, "Mrs. Trent, are the clouds lifting? Can you see the Peak?"

Still the woman kept silent. The sounds of the wheels grew momentarily louder, the voices of men talking broke in upon them, and then the carriage stopped before the door.

"Mrs. Trent," pleaded the doctor for the last time, "tell me, can you see the Peak?"

He heard the men climb out of the carriage and come up to the door, then a loud knock.

Mrs. Trent at last broke her silence.

"Doctor McMurray," she said, speaking quite softly, "Doctor McMurray, do you see? The Peak is clear. All the clouds have lifted!"

Literary Monthly, 1905.



THE FROST KING

CHARLES HENRY BRADY '06

When the weary sun, his day's course run, Sinks into the western sea, And the mountains loom in the growing gloom With far-off mystery, When the shadows creep o'er plain and steep With stealthy tread and still, And the fettered stream to its icy dream Is left by the sleeping mill, From the frozen north I then lead forth My swiftly flying bands, In close array on the track of day, As she flees to other lands.

From the wintry zone where the forests groan 'Neath burdens of dazzling white, And the tempest's roar as it strikes the shore Turns daylight into night, My armies throng and we march along In the light of the peeping stars, Which smile with glee at our chivalry And the shock of our mimic wars. For when earth and deep in a shroud of sleep Lie peaceful and still below, Supreme I reign in my airy domain, The monarch of ice and snow.

Literary Monthly, 1095.



UNTIL HE COMETH

GEORGE BURWELL DUTTON '07

THE CHARACTERS

AHASUERUS, the Wandering Jew.

ANSELM, a holy monk.

A band of travellers,—merchants, peasants, soldiers, who stop at the monastery over night.

Monks of the monastery.

The time is the twelfth century, a Christmas eve.

The place is the great hall of the monastery of St. Cuthbert. The room is a large one, with cold stone walls and a heavy-beamed ceiling, lighted by flaring torches. The rear wall is broken by a massive oaken door leading to the courtyard of the monastery, and two rudely glazed windows. On the right an open doorway leads to the chapel and to one side of the doorway is a shrine to the Virgin and Child, before which some candles burn with wavering flames. On the opposite side of the room is a huge fireplace with a blazing log fire. The wind is roaring outside, and even blows through the rude hall in great, gusty draughts, while a fine powder of snow sifts in through crevices of windows and door.



SCENE I. [The travellers, with some of the monks of the monastery, are seated before the fire. The Jew, bent, gaunt and gray-bearded, stands to one side, unrecognized, muttering to himself indistinctly. He has evidently just entered, for the melted snow still gleams from his clothing. The company disregard him, conversing among themselves.]

A SOLDIER. Now, by Our Lady, 'tis a raw cold night— I mind me when on such a night I lay Unsheltered in the trenches facing Mons In Flanders.

A MERCHANT. Hem! Sir Longbeard tells a tale. List, all!

THE SOLDIER. By Holy mass—

THE MERCHANT. Ho! Hear the oaths! They 're thick as—

THE SOLDIER. Hark ye! Hush thy meddling tongue!

A PEASANT. A quarrel! Mark them!

A MONK. Shame! On such a night When angels fill the air, and voices sweet, Mysterious, sing their golden songs of peace— On this glad night to quarrel?

THE SOLDIER. Why, to-night—

THE MONK. On such a night was Christ, our Saviour, born, While all the earth was wrapped in sacred peace. This is the holy eve, and on the morrow, With solemn chant we shall observe the birth Of that sweet Christ-child whom we worship all.

THE SOLDIER. Then I'll not quarrel—my hand upon it. There.

THE MERCHANT. Nor I. And here's my hand, good soldier. There.

[The company is silent for a moment, while the wind moans in the great chimney.]

THE MERCHANT [crossing himself]. Hark to the wind. Meseemeth that it wails Like some lost soul.

THE SOLDIER. Some say it is the soul Of that accursed Jew who crossed our Lord When he was on his way to Calvary, And was condemned to wander ever more Until the Christ a second time should come.

[The faces grow solemn, in the fire-light, and the voices are lowered.]

THE MONK. The Jew! Oft have men seen him bent and worn, When darkness fills the earth, still wandering, Still living out his curse.

THE PEASANT. List! Hear ye not?

THE SOLDIER. Again that mournful wailing of the wind.

THE PEASANT. How came he by the curse?

THE MONK. Know, when our Lord, Full weary, bore his cross to Calvary, He paused a moment, resting, but this Jew, Ahasuerus—cursed be the name— Reviled the Saviour, and commanded him To move away. Whereon our blessed Lord: "Because thou grudgest me a moment's rest Unresting shalt thou wander o'er the earth Until I come."

THE SOLDIER. Ah, would I had been there— The cursed Jew! An arrow through his heart Had stopped his babbling!

THE PEASANT. And had I been there, He would have felt the weight of my great fist Ere he had spoken twice.

[The Jew mutters indistinctly to himself in his corner.]

THE MERCHANT [in a low voice]. Dost hear the man? Old gray-beard murmurs.

THE SOLDIER. How! Is he a Jew?

THE MERCHANT. See how he cowers when we look at him.

THE MONK. He is no Jew. On this thrice-blessed night No Jew would dare seek shelter in Christ's house.

THE PEASANT. Yet they are daring—and men tell strange tales Of bloody rites which they perform apart.

THE SOLDIER. May God's high curse rest on their scattered race!

[The Jew flashes a quick glance upon them, and then looks down again. An unusually strong gust of wind sweeps through the hall, and strange moanings are heard in the chimney.]

THE PEASANT. Lost souls! Oh, Mother of Christ!

THE MERCHANT. They wail in pain.

THE MONK [making the sign of the cross]. 'Tis but the wind—or on this night mayhap We hear the noise of vast angelic hosts That sob to see our Saviour come to earth, A simple Babe, to suffer and to die— So brother Anselm tells.

THE SOLDIER. And what knows he Of angels' doings?

THE MONK [terrified.] Still! Thou impious man! Hast thou not heard the fame of Anselm's name? A very saint on earth, his eyes behold Things hidden from mankind; his face doth glow All radiant from his visions.

THE SOLDIER. Wretch that I am! Ah, woe is me to speak thus of God's saint.

[The deep-toned monastery bell rings.]

THE MONK. Come, follow me. Below us in the crypt The pious brethren this night have set forth The sacred mystery of Jesus' birth; Shalt see the very manger where he lay. Make haste and come.

[The company arise and pass out, all save the Jew. The monk, last, stares at the gaunt figure a moment, opens his lips to speak, then shakes his head and departs.]



SCENE II. [AHASUERUS, alone. He looks around him, as if to see if any remain in the room, then slowly moves toward the fireplace and holds his trembling hands before the fire.]

AHASUERUS. Ah, God of Jacob! Hear the Christians talk. "Dog Jew!" "Accursed Jew!" I hate you all! Your Christ sits on his kingly throne this night— But I am steadfast. How the very wind Doth buffet me and chill my aged bones! Ringed all about with enemies, I stand Unharmed—for by Jehovah's dreadful curse I live—nor can I die—until He come. How chill the wind sweeps through my withered frame While curses and revilings dog my steps— My weary, ceaseless steps. Ah, God! To die! Have I not expiated yet my sin?— To bear life's heavy burden o'er the earth, To wander from Armenia's distant hills, Through desert places now, and now through vales That flow with plenty; now through sordid towns, Until at last I reach the western seas; Then, ever homeless, to repeat my steps? Death were a blessing, yea, a gentle sleep— To feel delicious numbness seize my limbs, Mine eyes grow heavy, and the weary flight Of immemorial time forever stayed In sleep, in dreamless sleep—would I might die! I am so weary, weary of it all.

[He sinks down upon a bench, and is silent for a moment, in deep thought; a smile flits over his face, as at a pleasing memory, then the worn, hunted look returns.]

Faint shadows nicker 'round me, and at times Vague dreams of joy experienced long ago Beguile me for a moment, then I wake; Dim musings of that time when, yet a child, I prattled in the shade of Judah's hills And trod her leafy valleys aimlessly— But that was long, long centuries ago. Sometimes I dream, that when God bade my soul To leave its blest abode and come to earth In this vile guise, all-terrified it prayed This trial and affliction to be spared; But all in vain. And now the curse of God Is on that soul. The darkness hideth not, Oh, Lord, from thee; night shineth as the day. What weariness unspeakable is mine!

[He throws himself down on the bench in utter dejection. Suddenly he lifts his head—footsteps approach.]



SCENE III. [Enter ANSELM. At first, not aware of another's presence, he kneels before the Virgin's shrine, and mutters a short prayer in Latin. Then he arises and advances slowly, absorbed in meditation.]

ANSELM. This is the eve—the sacred eve of Christ. The wind is wild, and stormy is the night, And yet methinks despite the elements A holy peace pervades the solemn world— As when amid the hush of earthly strife The blessed Child was born.

[The Jew groans to himself, and the monk starts, then looks with half-seeing eyes.]

A stranger! Peace be unto you, my son, And may God's holy calm be yours amid The strife and turmoil of the outer world.

[AHASUERUS sits motionless. A bell sounds.]

The vespers ring. Come, join with me in prayer; Together let us reverence the God, The great all-Father, who sent unto us A little Child to lead us back to Him.

[The Jew acts as if he does not hear, but the monk is already at prayer and does not notice. AHASUERUS gazes steadfastly into the fire, while all is silent but the crackling of the flames and the moaning of the wind. Then the monk arises.]

Pray, let me sit beside you; all alone My brethren left you? Let me play the host.

[He sits down beside AHASUERUS; the Jew stares at him.]

You seem amazed, fair sir.

AHASUERUS [slowly]. I am a Jew.

[The monk starts, then sits down again, while the Jew regards him attentively.]

ANSELM. A Jew?

AHASUERUS [bitterly]. "Dog Jew," they call me.

ANSELM. God forbid! Yet once I would have scorned thee like the rest. But, long years past, before I sought these walls, Adventurous I rode into the East And underneath the walls of Joppa fell A victim to the fever. Many days I lingered in its grasp, and when I woke To strength, I found a Jew had tended me. E'en then I scorned him, but with gentle words He heaped great coals of fire on my head. And then I dreamed a dream—upon a cross— Two other crosses near—outlined against A dark and dreadful sky, I saw a man; And lo, it was a Jew—Christ was a Jew. With tears I sought mine host, and told the tale, And he was swift to pardon—he, a Jew.

[AHASUERUS will not trust himself to reply, but gazes steadfastly into the fire. From the adjacent chapel the low notes of an organ fall upon their ears.]

ANSELM. You speak not. Ah, I wonder not at it. On such a night is meditation good, And soothing to the soul. The wind is high But cannot harm; the torches flicker low, While softly like a benediction falls The distant melody upon our ears; And in the silent watches of the night God's holy Spirit broods o'er all the world And bringeth calm and peace to all mankind.

AHASUERUS [wildly]. For me there is no peace—I am the Jew Who, cursed of the Lord, must wander till He comes again. For me no peace, forever!

ANSELM [starts]. Thou art that Jew!

AHASUERUS [despairingly]. I am that Jew. Farewell.

[AHASUERUS pulls his cloak around him and arises to leave. As he totters toward the door the monk looks after him irresolutely, then turns his eyes to the Virgin's shrine as if to seek counsel.]

ANSELM [whispers to himself]. Those eyes—still gaze—in mercy. A-a-h, methinks— How sad they look! [aloud]. Ahasuerus! Hold!

[ANSELM hastens after the Jew, and seeks to lead him back. AHASUERUS resists.]

AHASUERUS. Not so! I am accursed. Let me go!

ANSELM. Forgive me, if I have offended thee, For I am weak—yet see; I pray you, stay. Without, the night is wild—and here is calm.

AHASUERUS. The storm was e'er my lot.

ANSELM. But now the calm Invites to rest.

AHASUERUS [slowly]. To—rest?

[He stands undecided, then submits to be led back to the fire. For a moment neither speaks, then AHASUERUS cries out.]

AHASUERUS. There is no rest For me, nor ever can be, for I Am curst of God.

ANSELM. O miserere! Pray! Pray and with you I'll pray.—O, thou sweet Christ, Look down in pity on this erring one! We all like sheep have gone astray; O God, Thou shepherd of the flock, lead us to thee.

AHASUERUS [whispers]. May God be merciful!

ANSELM. O, holy Babe, That on this night did'st come to earth to seek Thine own, look down upon our need and grant Thy mercy. Holy Mother, intercede.

AHASUERUS [brokenly]. Cease, cease. It is enough. O, not for me Is God's high mercy,—I am ever curst.

ANSELM. God's mercy is not limited, O, no. His grace is all-sufficient, even for thee. All we are weak and sinful, He is strong. Oh, call upon His name, and He will come.

[There is silence for a moment, save for the plaintive notes of the organ. Suddenly AHASUERUS rises, tears coursing down his cheeks.]

AHASUERUS. At last, O God, at last, my hard heart breaks. I thank thee for these tears; the burden lifts— Sing unto God, O brother, and rejoice! The darkness disappears, and lo, the light— Behold, the Light!

[As he speaks, a miraculous radiance fills the room; AHASUERUS slowly sinks down upon the floor, ever gazing heavenward in mute adoration, while the monk falls before the Virgin's shrine in prayer. There is a sound of many feet from without, and the company of the earlier evening enter noisily, but drop on their knees in awe as they behold the miracle. AHASUERUS murmurs in a low voice hardly to be understood.]

AHASUERUS. Lord, comest thou—to me?

[Then dimly, like a distant strain of music, a wondrous Voice is heard, and by some understood.]

THE VOICE. I come, Ahasuerus; lo, I come. Behold, I stand at the door, and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him ... Behold, I come quickly.

[AHASUERUS falls back, and a look of deep peace overspreads his countenance. The radiance fades away, and there remains only the flickering light of the torches, which are almost extinguished in the great gusts of wind that sweep through the room. Far above, the joyous chimes are pealing a welcome to the new day.]

Literary Monthly, 1905.



THE MASK OF ADELITA

GERALD MYGATT '08

To think that it all happened within a rifle shot of the greatest city in America, in the very outskirts of New York—this was strange. A romance of old Spain, tingling with the memory of times when men fought single-handed for the toss of a rose or the gleam from under the black lashes of a senorita, or bled and died for the sake of a yellow silken scarf! That such a thing should have happened as it did seems preposterous, and yet, on second thought, it occurred so naturally that at the time there was no idea of its being in the least out of place in this prosaic New World. It was like a dream of the past—and yet it was no dream.

It was our Saturday half-holiday and Henderson and I were driving the stagnation of a week's confinement out of our lungs by a long walk into the country. We were just starting back in the approaching dusk when a round stone that I happened to step on turned under my foot. I tried to grin, and hobbled along for a moment; then I sat down at the side of the road.

"It's my ankle. I don't believe I can make it, Fred."

"Make a try at it, old man. It's only a short mile to the railroad station and there won't be any footing it from there. Perhaps walking will ease it up."

I got up, but after a few steps sat down again.

"I'm awfully sorry, Fritz, but I simply can't do it. The thing hurts like all time."

He stood still and looked about him. The road followed the curve of a hill, at the foot of which flowed a tiny brook. Ahead, it passed through a little colony of houses, perhaps twenty in all. The hamlet had an air about it that marked it from numerous others we had walked through that afternoon. The cottages appeared brighter and there were gardens among them that seemed unlike the others we had passed. No hotel or public house of any kind was to be seen.

"I wonder what this place is," said Henderson. "It doesn't look especially alluring."

I looked up from the task of rubbing my ankle.

"No," I commented, "it doesn't seem alluring, and I suppose ninety-nine hundredths of the people that pass through here look at it the same way. But to you, Fred, I'm pretty sure it would be rather attractive, and I know that it would be to me with this beastly foot."

"What! Stay here all night? I guess not."

"If you only knew what it was," I ventured.

"Probably another of Washington's headquarters, or the site of the Battle of—."

"Wait a minute before you explode, and give me a chance. This is the Spanish colony."

"What?"

"The Spanish colony."

"What Spanish colony?"

"Of all things, do you mean to tell me that you never heard of it?"

"I do."

"Well," I said, "it's wonderful how much New Yorkers don't know about themselves. This place was settled a long time ago by the few Spaniards there were in this part of the country, and they've stuck together ever since. I don't believe there are a hundred people in the city that know about the place. Maybe it's on account of the war, when these people had to keep pretty quiet, but whatever it is, they are here. I've been through here before and I've often wished that I could have stopped off. Now the Lord seems to have taken matters into His own hands."

If there was anything Henderson enjoyed it was tales and relics of the old Romance lands, and I knew it. Then there was my ankle, which was throbbing painfully.

"If your old foot really is as bad as you say," said Henderson, "why, we can put up here over night. To-morrow is Sunday, you know, and we don't have to be back."

He spoke condescendingly, but I knew that if I suggested that after all we might get back he would almost get down on his knees and plead with me. So I spared him the trouble. We started again toward the little hamlet. Henderson wanted to stop at the first house we came to, but I pulled him on.

"Let's tackle that larger white one ahead there to the right," I suggested. "It looks to be the best of the lot—and besides, the last time I was through here I noticed a mighty pretty girl standing in the doorway—one of those black-eyed story-book senoritas you so dote on."

"I'm surprised at a man of your age and dignity noticing senoritas," he laughed. Nevertheless he turned into the little garden and raised the iron knocker.

The door was opened almost instantly by a short, rather stoutish man, well past the prime of life. There was nothing in his dress to mark him from the average middle-class New Yorker, but his face was swarthy and the hair that was not grey was glistening black. We explained our desires.

"I am afraid you can find no accommodations," he said, with but the slightest trace of an accent.

Henderson said something to him in Spanish, and as he did so the man stared a moment, smiled, showing all his teeth, and then answered in the same tongue with a flood of words that I could barely understand. Then he took our hats and bowed the way into a little parlor.

"Will the senor with the injured foot recline upon the sofa? I will bring in hot water to bathe it. We have a large room upstairs with a bed for two, where the senores may pass the night." He took out a large gold watch. "It is now quarter before six. Dinner will be served at half after the hour. Till then the senores may rest. I will bring the hot water to your chamber."

Promptly at six-thirty Henderson and I descended the stairs. The rest and a bath had done us both good, and even my ankle, though badly swollen, had ceased to give much pain. From the house and from our host we had gathered much of interest. His family had come over some seventy-five years ago and had moved directly to the little house, which the widower Senor Lucas de Marcelo and his daughter Adelita still possessed. Don Lucas himself was a jeweller, going in to the city every day. We found him waiting for us at the foot of the stairs.

"In but a moment dinner will be prepared," he said. "If the senores will pardon me, I must go out to the kitchen. To-night is the big dance, the mascarade, for which Adelita must dress." He raised his voice. "Adela! Hasten, little one."

"I am coming," called a clear girlish voice.

Henderson and I waited in the little parlor. Back in the house we could hear our host moving about among the pots and pans. Then from the top of the stairs there sounded a soft voice:

"Padre—father!"

Don Lucas dropped his work and stepped into the parlor.

There was a swish, a click of high heels on the stairs, a flash of red, with a momentary glimpse of white, and the girl stood before us. The father spoke:

"Senores, my daughter."

She bent low and then arose, smiling as her father had smiled, showing the white of her teeth. She was dressed all in red, from the roses in her black hair to her tiny, outrageously high-heeled Spanish slippers. The hair was parted in the middle and drawn back, giving an almost child-like expression to the handsome face with its snapping black eyes and full red lips. Under the dark wave behind each ear she had effectively pinned a cluster of rose-buds. Over her gleaming shoulders she had thrown a scarf of the thinnest red silk, and a similar scarf, fringed with black lace, was drawn about her hips and knotted at the left side. The heavily ruffled skirts fell within a few inches of the floor, but as she turned they swung higher, showing her slippers and a bit of red silk-covered ankle. In her hand she dangled a tiny black mask. Her father looked at her proudly.

"It is the dancing costume of the Old Country," he explained. "It is in honor of the mascarade to-night."

We passed into the little dining-room. Just before we sat down Henderson managed to whisper to me:

"Whew! I guess you're right about the good-looking girl."

All through the meal he watched her covertly, and the moment he took his eyes from her face I noticed that she would glance over at him. Then the second he turned her way her eyes would drop and a dull red would suffuse her face and neck. Whether Henderson noticed it or not I do not know, but I did. When the coffee was brought in by Adelita our host opened a box of mellow cigars, and we passed out into the parlor. In the doorway the girl stopped her father and excitedly whispered in his ear.

"Please," she pleaded, "you know you are old and do not like to stay so late, and he is young and big and could take as good care of me as you. Please, padre."

"Would it be right?" he queried. Then he thought a moment. "Perhaps—"

"Bueno," she cried. "Good. Ask him, padre, please, please."

The old man smiled. Then he came over to where Fred and I were standing.

"Did you hear the girl," he asked, "the little scamp? She thinks I am too old to take her to the ball—and too uninteresting. She wishes to know if the senores would care to go with her in my place. It would perhaps be interesting to you."

I guessed what she really wanted, so I spoke:

"You go, Fritz. I'd like to, only my foot's too bad."

"I won't go without you," he said.

Here I took him aside and told him what I had seen at the table.

"Now," I said, "if you don't go you're a fool. And personally I'd rather stay here anyhow and talk to the don."

"All right. I'll do it."

The girl was watching him, and as he spoke she smiled. Then she walked over to him, put both her hands in his, looked up into his face and laughed aloud, a cheery, rippling laugh.

"For to-night," she said, "you shall be my cavalier, mi caballero." Then I heard him whisper in Spanish:

"I will. And you shall be my lady."

After half an hour of bustling and sewing and rummaging in trunks, there appeared on the stairs some six feet of Spanish cavalier. I held him off at arm's length.

"Well, old man, you look like a prince. You pretty near match the princess. But where did you get that rig?"

"Oh, the boots and the picture hat"—he nodded his head and the feather moved majestically—"they belong to old Marcelo. He used to wear 'em. They have had a masquerade ball here every year for the past fifty years, more or less—Don Lucas couldn't quite remember. These boots"—they were patent leather with yellow tops—"fit as if they belonged to me. This cape is an old one of the girl's turned inside out"—it was light yellow satin—"and the red sash is hers too. I tell you, this is the best fun I've had in years. And isn't the girl a queen though!"

"Well," I began—but here she came into the room.

"It is time," she said, "that we started, you and I." Her father descended the stairs. Adelita threw her arms about his neck and kissed him.

"Good-night, Padre—till later. Buenas noches. Good-night, senor." This to me.

"Buenas noches, Adela," murmured the old man. "Good-night, senor. Take good care of the daughter." The father and I passed into the parlor.

She took Henderson's hand and led him out of the door. They did not go out of the gate, but turned through the little garden, past the house, and followed a narrow path that ran down the hill. As the grass was high on either side he followed where she led, holding fast to the hand she stretched out to him. Suddenly as the path dipped down the hill she commenced to run. Henderson held back. She looked over her shoulder, laughing.

"Are you afraid to follow?" she asked in Spanish.

"No, little one, I am not," he answered in the same tongue, "but I am afraid that with those high heels you will wrench your ankle."

"Oho," she laughed, "I was born for this." But she stopped and walked slowly.

The moon was just rising, big and red, as if it were autumn instead of late spring. The girl drew in a deep breath.

"Look at that, Senor Federico mio, look at that." She still spoke in the Old World tongue.

Now they had reached the little brook that tumbled down through the rolling valley. The girl spoke again.

"Here the path is wider. You may walk beside me—if you like." She glanced up from under her black lashes. "The hall is but a short half mile down the stream here to the left." They proceeded, walking slowly, the brook purling and murmuring at their side. The girl drew in her breath again, deliberately and deep.

"Smell the roses. It is the long arbor of Don Benito, through which we must pass. Ah, it is wonderful."

The heavy musk of roses seemed literally to fill the bottom of the vale. With it was mingled the scent of the grass and of the field flowers. Over all hung the moon, yellow and near.

"It is wonderful," mused Henderson. She came close to him.

"Remember," she said, "to-night I am your lady, and you—you are my cavalier. Take care of the feather in your cavalier's hat, for here is the arbor." He bowed his head, and they passed beneath the sweet-scented array of blossoms and buds. Then, as they rounded a corner of the slope, there came to them from far down the valley the sound of music and the glint of lights through the uneasy leaves of the maples.

"Hear it," the girl cried, "hear it! They may be dancing. Let us hurry. 'Sh! Now we are getting too near. We must mask. Here, senor, help me with my mask and I will do the same for you. Thank you. Stoop lower, please. There, now it is right!" They proceeded. "I wonder what Carlos will say to this. He will be surprised when we unmask. Until then he will not know me—nor you either." She lowered her voice. "I told him that my costume was to be that of a shepherdess."

They were close to the hall now. A turn brought them to a wider path which led directly to the building. Up the steps and into the throng of masks they passed, the girl now holding tight to the man's arm. The orchestra was playing a waltz and the pair swung into the whirl, dancing fast and gracefully. The music stopped; a man in the costume of a Spanish sailor came up and asked for the next. The girl looked down, then glanced quickly up and pointed silently to the tall cavalier at her side. The sailor bowed and passed on. Then the music started again.

"I cannot speak, you see," the girl panted as they swept around a corner, "or they would know my voice. Of course—oh look, there is Carlos. He must be looking everywhere for me."

A tall man, clad in the helmet and boots of a Spanish military officer, stood in the center of the floor, intently watching each couple as it passed. Adelita he followed closely with his eyes, as if perplexed. Then he shook his head.

"He does not know me," she laughed.

But at the end of that dance he strode up to her and bowed.

"May I have the honor?"

She said nothing, but inclined her head. Then they waltzed off. Henderson stood at the side watching the whirling crowd. The vivid reds and yellows and greens of the costumes blended harmoniously in a swirl of color that seemed a part of the music, the laughter, and the splendor of the night. Just then the couple passed, the man talking intently, the girl with her head bowed, saying nothing. As the dance ended, Henderson was about to go up and accost an attractive looking shepherdess, when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned around, surprised. It was the tall officer whom Adelita had called Carlos.

"Stranger," he said in English, "why have you made my Adela, Senorita de Marcelo, try to hide from me? Do you think, although she has not spoken, that I could fail to know her? Do you think I would not recognize her even if she came in a black cowl and robe? Who are you that have dared speak to her as you have? I have watched her—and you. Hear me, interloper, I will not have you dance with her or speak to her again. The rest of the house is yours—and welcome." He was answered in Spanish.

"With my compliments, mind your own business. When I need advice I shall come to you, and not before. Who are you—and pray, who am I?"

"I—I am Senor Carlos Gerardo," he answered in the native tongue. "How do I know you? Bah! I know every man in the room. You heard what I said about Adelita. Now remember."

Henderson turned on his heel and walked directly over to where the girl stood, talking with the shepherdess. Adelita looked down as he came up and tapped the floor nervously with the toe of a red slipper. Her face was flushed.

"May I have this dance?" he asked.

"Surely."

They swung off to the tune of a catchy American popular air. Few of the dances had been Spanish. He waited, and at last she broke the silence.

"Carlos danced with me and tried to get me to speak, but I would not. Nevertheless he knows me, and is angry—very angry. But it will do him good. He—he said he was going to speak to you."

"He did," put in Henderson dryly. "Is it the custom here to allow no other man to dance with one's friends?"

"No," she said, "it is not. But he—Carlos is very jealous."

After the dance the officer came up to Henderson again.

"You heard me," he muttered. "I cannot bear with this."

Again Henderson turned on his heel and again he asked her for the next dance. She had it with the sailor, but promised him the one after.

It was warm inside, so after their waltz Fred and the girl went out on a little balcony which hung low over the brook. The moon was high in the heavens, and shone softly through the whispering leaves. From up the valley a gentle breeze brought the heavy scent of the roses.

"It is so hot inside," the girl said, her voice so low that it seemed part of the night, "and out here it is so cool and—and wonderful." Again she came close. "For to-night you are my cavalier, and I am your lady. Oh, if to-night could but be every night. You are so big and kind and—different."

"And you," he said, with the romance of it mounting to his head, "you are more than different. If to-night only was every night. For to-night you are my lady."

A shadow darkened the doorway behind them and a long arm shot out for Henderson's neck. Surprised, he turned blindly. It was Don Carlos. Quick as a flash Fred hit him full between the eyes, and with the other arm tried to loosen the hold on his throat. There was no sound; the girl stood breathless. Again he struck and the hand at his throat tore away. There was a flash of steel in the hand of the Spaniard—but the blow never fell. The girl stood between them, her arms spread apart, her eyes flashing.

"Carlos," she said slowly, "if you ever strike a blow like that, be eternally cursed by me. You fool! Know you not that I was playing with you? How I hate you! Go!" She stamped her foot. "Go, I say."

He turned with bent head, and without a word passed into the building. As he disappeared, the girl sank back, her face white, almost greyish, against the red of her dress.

"Hold me, senor," she said weakly. "I am not well. Could—would you take me home—to my father?"

Without a word Henderson picked her up bodily and stepped off the little low balcony into the grass. Not until they reached the arbor did she speak.

"Thank you. I think I can walk now."

He set her down and she smoothed her rumpled skirts. Then they proceeded together slowly. Silently they followed the path which a few hours before they had so gaily trod, and silently they ascended the hill.

The old man and I had not yet gone to bed when they entered the house. She came in laughing.

"Is it not early, my angel?" he asked. "It is but little past midnight." She smiled.

"Yes, padre, it is early—but I—I thought I would return."

Late that night, as Henderson and I lay in bed—he telling me the story of the evening—we could hear the girl in the next room, sobbing, sobbing as if her heart would break. It made Henderson uneasy.

"I'd like to do something," he said. "The scoundrel! He ought to be whipped."

I grunted and tried to get to sleep, but it was useless. Fred was tossing restlessly, and the girl in the other room was still sobbing, sobbing. Suddenly there sounded a whistle, low but clear. The sobbing ceased. The whistle sounded again. We heard a quiet step and the noise of an opening window.

"O Carlos mio," she breathed in the mother tongue, "I knew you would come."

"Adela mia," he called softly, "my angel, I hoped you would be here and—and you are."

"You have been so long," she sighed.

"Henderson," I said, "if you have any decency, go to sleep."

We rolled over and closed our eyes, while unknown to us the breeze wafted up the heavy night odor of the roses and the yellow moon slowly moved toward the western heavens.

Literary Monthly, 1906.



THE AWAKENING

WILLARD ANSLEY GIBSON '08

When March has tuned his willow pipes, The robins in the rain Take up the song with plaintive notes And sing the sweet refrain.

Then April, sleepy child of Spring, Awakes, to music yields, Goes dancing 'cross the fields.

The modest buds, once red and brown, Burst forth in plumes of green, And interlace the barren boughs With wreaths of vernal sheen.

The old sun-dial beside the walk Takes heart for sunny day; But half-awake marks sleepy hours By light through spring-time haze.

When March has tuned his willow pipes, The children passing by Kneel down and pluck the early flowers, And smile, they know not why.

Literary Monthly, 1906.



THE BROOK RELEASED

WILLARD ANSLEY GIBSON '08

I'm coming, I'm coming, The miller has lifted The gates that have bound me; At last I am free, And where the grey sands O'er my courses have drifted My swift happy waters Shall hurrying be. Like hearts that unburdened From grief come to weeping, And smile 'mid their tears At old sorrows past; So my sunny waters, The white rapids leaping, From dark fearsome valleys Come singing at last.

I'm coming, I'm coming, The children shall love me; The beeches, the willows, The golden elm trees That close by the village Are drooping above me, Shall float on my billows Their last withered leaves. The grey flocks shall meet me, The meadow larks greet me, And oft the shy new moon, In veiled halo lace, Through bare tangled branches, In sad brooding shallows, Shall trail her cloud tresses, Shall bathe her pale face.

I'm coming, I'm coming, O hearken, sad-hearted, My sweet singing voices Shall teach you by day; And in the night's darkness The stars gently mirrored, All borne on my current, Shall mark you the way. Dark mountains may tower, Dark valleys may lower, But follow, sad-hearted, Come smiling, light-hearted, Come fare to the river; His Hand in the forest Has marked the true way.

Literary Monthly, 1907.



THE GARDENER

SONNET

WILLARD ANSLEY GIBSON '08

She told me of her garden, all the flowers, Of hallowed lilies and the glories bright, Frail tinted cups filled with the morning's light; The primrose drooping for the evening hours. She spoke of hedges, hawthorns, and the powers Of weeds and frost in April, and the blight Of birds and children; prayed her blossoms might Not so allure them to her paths and bowers. And I turned silently upon my way, And sought His untrod forests and the hills, My free companions of no guile nor art— Their holy strength is more than rocks and clay; I sought the comfort loneliness instills: Dear Christ! She spoke her own vain, selfish heart.

Literary Monthly, 1910.



NOCTURNE

WILLARD ANSLEY GIBSON '08

Over the hills Softly the slumber light Seems to me creeping, Stealing with twilight, While the world sleeping Breathes in the lower light Prayers for its loved ones Over the hills.

Stars watch, and the fire glows, Fading it goes, fainter it glows, Lips of vain speaking silently close— The breath comes, but the breath goes.

Some mothers stifled lie, Sobbing till life is gone; Some fathers bitter die In their remorse ere dawn;

Stars watch, and the fire glows— Something comes, something goes.

Far in the night Beckon the locust trees, Whispering, calling, And from their drooping leaves White blossoms falling Float on a magic breeze, Far in a phantom world, Far in the night.

Clocks chime and the night goes, Slowly it goes, brighter it grows, Tired hands folded rest in repose— The breath comes, but the breath goes.

Some watchers on the hill Wide-eyed await the dawn; Some workers in the mill Wearying are toiling on;

Clocks chime, and the night goes— Slowly it lighter grows.

Literary Monthly, 1910.



THE HIDDEN FACE

BERNARD WESTERMANN '08

The moon hath a hidden face and fair,— Never we gaze on its features calm; She gazeth afar on the star-lit air, On star-lighted regions whose breath is balm; But never, ah never, her glance doth show To the world of men in the deeps below.

O love, do you know that there dwells in thee A hiddenest spirit that dreams alway, And never the world can her features see, Of the spirit that shunneth the earthly day? Only I know that she lives, to rise Some day, some night, in your love-lit eyes.

Literary Monthly, 1906.



MODERN THOUGHT AND MEDIEVAL DOGMA

SONNET

BERNARD WESTERMANN '08

Are we but truants from a parent stern— Whose strait commands with fear we long obeyed, Till, gladdened by the sunlight, far we strayed, And lingered by the woodside and the byrne, The bird's sweet passion at the sun's return, The flower's grieving at his sight delayed, With wistful, long-pent love, to watch and learn, Till evening come, and we turn home dismayed?

Or have we grown unto our fuller seeing, The manhood of our days, when evermore Our Father speaks and, punishment decreeing, Is high and silent from his sapphire door? Forever past, the childhood of our being: He stoops to reason who but spake before.

Literary Monthly, 1908.



THE GOBLIN KING

A BALLAD

BERNARD WESTERMANN '08

Beside the grim, the grey, cold sea I heard a goblin call to me; Beneath a rock, beside the water, He cried, "Go pray thy lady daughter To bring some wine to me.

"For coldly runs the salt, salt tide, And I am prisoned fast and long, And I was wont to feast and song, And roaming through the woodland wide.

"For coldly runs the salt, salt tide, And I am wont to have my will, And he that brooks it fareth ill, When I may roam the woodland wide.

"Of old, of old I roamed the wood, Of old I dwelt in lordly state, Before they came, the black-heart brood, To make me thus disconsolate.

"For coldly runs the salt, salt tide, And stones are hard that prisons be; Yet here in daily hope I bide, That one will hear and come to me.

"They came with drums and dancing fire, And wreaths and chants and incense sweet; They stole away my heart's desire, That was all fair and lithe and fleet.

"And coldly runs the salt, salt tide; Alone they bound and prisoned me, Nor may I taste of aught beside, Though well I know the sweets there be.

"A thousand gnomes brought golden urns, With red, red wine and crystal filled; And all my couch was flowers and ferns, And whatsoever maid I willed.

"But coldly runs the salt, salt tide, And men ride up the high, white road. And many a goodly maid beside— Nor ever glance to my abode.

"The bee sucks sweetness all the day, And dwells in flowers from morn to night; But never, never need he stay, And never feels he gloom nor blight.

"But coldly flows the salt, salt tide, And I am weary of my breath; Though all the world is fair beside, And yet I taste nor life nor death.

"In feasts we sat at silken boards, Endraped with silver gossameres, And 'round me sat my bearded lords, And maidens served whose sires were peers.

"And coldly runs the salt, salt tide; I loved too well and she was fair, And here in bondage dire I bide, Who never thought to know despair.

"I hate the stone, I fear the water; I dread the grey, the moaning sea; I pray thee bid thy lady daughter To fetch some wine to me.

"For coldly, coldly, runs the tide; And all the foam is salt and strong; And here, athirst and cramped, I bide, And I have waited, waited long."

Literary Monthly, 1910.



OUT OF THE HARBOR

STANTON BUDINGTON LEEDS ex-'08

Across the breadth of many memoried years I catch a whiff of strong, salt air Light-hearted blowing of the gentle wind, And all the swaying of the sad and silent sea; On high a golden star, bright, peerless, free, In endless space confined,— And light as laughter 'gainst my cheek, star-lit with tears, A wavy lock of sweet brown hair.

The star wove silver webs across the ways Carved by the wind, a half-breathed sigh, That spoke in ripples. "O Heart's Delight," I cried, "The skiff comes for me now across the water." And, as I bent to kiss her, Love's fair daughter, She barely breathed, "Good-night," And some musician blended Chopin with her phrase: "Good-bye, Love's youth, Youth's love, good-bye."

Literary Monthly, 1907.



SUCCESS

STANTON BUDINGTON LEEDS ex-'08

The deep, dark clouds are yonder massed, And rain has drenched fields drear and dun, But o'er the farthest hills at last I see the sun!

Literary Monthly, 1905.



ON THE "CHANT D'AMOUR" OF BURNE-JONES

ROGER SHERMAN LOOMIS '09

Mysterious damozel in white, White like the swans that glide upon the pool below, Who art thou that with fingers light Playest upon those ivory keys such music low?

O winged youth in dreamful thought, With eyelids weighed with utter sweetness, who art thou, With garments by the breezes caught, Whose hands with drowsy motion ply the bellows now?

The youth and damsel answer not. But thou, O listening knight-at-arms, thou mayest tell Who are these minstrels mild, and what The strains that here outside this quiet city swell.

The youth with languid moving wrist In puissance may with any of the gods compare; No marvel thou must stay and list, For 'tis the Song of Love breathes on the evening air.

Know by the calm her lips disclose, By the fine shades and faery lustre of her eyes, The damsel is the queen of those Whose names are written Beatrice in Paradise.

While yon still towers in sunset lie, Her face oblivious of all else I'll ponder long. My body thrills with ecstasy! My heart beats with the rhythmic pulsing of the song!

Literary Monthly, 1906.



THE MANY ROADS

HORACE HOLLEY ex-'10

The north road, the south road, Highway, byway, There never was a road men trod That did not lead them home.

The east road, the west road, Your way, my way, Men's tangled footprints end in God, Through Arcady or Rome.

Literary Monthly, 1907.



BEAUTY

HORACE HOLLEY ex-'10

Her beauty lies upon her face As sunlight masks the barren sea; A fitful, accidental grace Which time shall ruin utterly.

Not like the Beauty all divine (The "house of God," the poet saith), Which is the craftsman-soul's design, Its majesty supreme in death.

Literary Monthly, 1908.



PREFERMENT AND THE FOOL

HORACE HOLLEY ex-'10

The Fool was sitting by his half-built sod house. This was the season of building, for the sun shone; and moreover presently would come the bitter unending rain of winter, when it were better to be abiding safely at home. Nevertheless the Fool sat happily idle, for he never could get enough of the sunshine, though he rose with the sun in the morning and wistfully watched it set at night. Now he was twirling a dandelion between thumb and finger, and gazing out across the valley to the running hills of the north country. It so happened that the Fool's house was on a cross-road, and presently, as he was a-sitting at his ease, along came the King of that land, with a great cavalcade of soldiers and retainers. And because on their brazen shields and helmets the sun was reflected more brightly than from yonder peak, the Fool turned to gaze at them as they wound past. In sooth, had it not been for that, he would never have given them a glance at all, not having much curiosity about the things other people love to gape at.