A Williams Anthology | Page 5

bare,
Uplifted to the dark unpitying heavens.

The skies have put their mourning garments on
And hung their
funeral drapery on the clouds.
Dead Nature soon will wear her shroud
of snow
And lie entombed in Winter's icy grave.

Thus passes life. As hoary age comes on
The joys of youth--bright
beauties of the spring,
Grow dim and faded, and the long dark night

Of Death's chill Winter comes. But as the spring
Rebuilds the
ruined wrecks of Winter's waste,
And cheers the gloomy earth with
joyous light,
So o'er the tomb, the Star of Hope shall rise,
And
usher in an ever during day.
Quarterly, 1854.
[Footnote 1: Died 1881.]
IN THE FOREST
ANON.
We lie beneath the forest shade
Whose sunny tremors dapple us;

She is a proud-eyed Grecian maid
And I am Sardanapalus;
A king
uncrowned whose sole allegiance
Resides in dusky forest regions.
How cool and liquid seems the sky;
How blue and still the distance is!

White fleets of cloud at anchor lie
And mute are all existences,

Save here and there a bird that launches
A shaft of song among the
branches.
Within this alien realm of shade
We keep a sylvan Passover;
We
happy twain, a wayward maid,
A careless, gay philosopher;
But
unto me she seems a Venus
And Paphian grasses nod between us.
Her drooping eyelids half conceal
A vague, uncertain mystery;
Her
tender glances half reveal
A sad, impassioned history;
A tale of
hopes and fears unspoken
Of thoughts that die and leave no token.
"Oh braid a wreath of budding sprays
And crown me queen," the
maiden says;
"Queen of the shadowy woodland ways,
And
wandering winds, whose cadences
Are unto thee that tale repeating

Which I must perish while secreting!"

I wove a wreath of leaves and buds
And flowers with golden chalices,

And crowned her queen of summer woods
And dreamy forest
palaces;
Queen of that realm whose tender story
Makes life a
splendor, death a glory.
Quarterly, 1856.
CORSICA
ANON.
A lonely island in the South, it shows
Its frosted brow, and waves its
shaggy woods,
And sullenly above the billow broods.
Here he that
shook the frighted world arose.
'Twas here he gained the strength the
wing to plume,
To swoop upon the Arno's classic plains,
And drink
the noblest blood of Europe's veins--
His eye but glanced and nations
felt their doom!
Alas! "how art thou fall'n, oh Lucifer,
Son of the
morning!" thou who wast the scourge
And glory of the earth--whose
nod could urge.
Proud armies deathward at the trump of war!
And
did'st thou die on lone Helena's isle?
And art thou nought but dust
and ashes vile?
Quarterly, 1857.
LOOKING BACKWARD
WASHINGTON GLADDEN '59
From one who belonged in a remote antiquity to the fraternity of
college editors, a contribution to this centennial number[1] has been
solicited. Perhaps I can do no better than to recall a few impressions of
my own life in college. Every year, at the banquet, I observe that I am
pushed a little nearer to the border where the almond tree flourishes,
and I shall soon have a right to be reminiscent and garrulous. At the
next centennial I shall not be called on; this is my last chance.
I came to college in the fall of 1856. My class had been in college for a

year, so that the vicissitudes of a freshman are no part of my memory. I
shall never forget that evening when I first entered Williamstown,
riding on the top of the North Adams stage. The September rains had
been abundant, and the meadows and slopes were at their greenest; the
atmosphere was as nearly transparent as we are apt to see it; the sun
was just sinking behind the Taconics, and the shadows were creeping
up the eastern slopes of Williams and Prospect; as we paused on the
little hill beyond Blackinton the outline of the Saddle was defined
against a sky as rich and deep as ever looked down at sunset on Naples
or Palermo. I thought then that I had never seen a lovelier valley, and I
have had no occasion to revise that judgment. To a boy who had seen
few mountains that hour was a revelation. On the side of the
picturesque, the old way of transportation was better than the new. The
boy who is dumped with his trunks at the station near the factory on the
flat gets no such abundant entrance into Williamstown as was
vouchsafed to the boy who rode in triumphantly on the top of Jim
Bridges' stage.
The wide old street was as hospitable then as now; if the elms were
something less paternal in their benediction their stature was fair and
their shade was ample; but the aspect of the street--how greatly
changed since then! There were two or three fine old colonial houses,
which are standing now and are not likely to be improved upon; but
most of the dwellings were of the orthodox New England village
pattern, built, I suppose, to square with the theology of the Shorter
Catechism, or perhaps with the measurements