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Page 133 text:
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(FI|P i txuttfavhxtxtt HS a class we have never been humbugs enough to hug any literary illusions to our bosoms ; there is not one of us who could tell a Muse from a mud-lark if he should meet them strolling arm in arm. But during the term of our pilgrimage here we have perpetrated various literary nimblenesses in the garb of poetry or prose. The more racy or the more impossible of these were privately circulated, the rest claimed public attention either in the classic pages of The Haverfordiaii. or in the more roman- tic and ungrammatical columns of the Weekhj and the Middle Barclay Squirt. Since there is scarcely one of us who at some time or other has not stirred up his brains in his inkwell and sat him down to dash off a sonnet or a roundelay, we must needs give lady Poetry the front seat in our recollections. Some time in Sophomore Year, Lucius Shero was bitten with a sort of moon- germ ; already, we may suppose, he had fallen under the spell of some terrestrial damsel. Forthwith he prayed in ponderous iambics that the moon might .sail serenely over the lady ' s head which was far far away. Astronomical conditions remaining unchanged, he addressed his next flight of poesy to Her herself, and in melting heroic couplets entreated her to hearken to his sighs. Arnold Post was next smitten with the phrensie. using the sonnet as the vehicle for his passion ; a vehicle which in his facile hands became as dainty and as supple as a one-legged wheel-barrow. His worst lines are: The .joy of nature ' s silence is so sweet. Which kept from parlous paths my toddling feet. his best : Last night I spent dreaming r)f heart ' s desire. And then 1 got up and built the kitchen fire. Alas! ' twas ever thus. But the subtle will ob.serve that there is not much dilTerence between Post at his best and at his wor.st. 125
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Page 134 text:
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Then Shoep appeared in The Havevfordian with some graceful verses, which, like all inspired poetry, left the intellect of the feeble reader somewhat bemused as to what it was all about. Who was the thee that Vic was going to dwell with, under God ' s blue bell ? Was it his room-mate, Ken- nett Square Reynolds, — or was it not? These were the Great Poets of those Arcadian days of Sophomoredom. Of the smaller fry of poetasters, some mention must be made of Henry ' s Ode to his Orient Brother, Deeply Dipped in Doubt, and of Jack Bradway ' s many and amorous lyrics, which, though coldly rejected by The Haver- fordian, wended their burning way to Bryn Mawr. Cale Winslow ' s Lay of the Last Dime will always be sung by those who remember it, and even such a pessimistic soul as Jay Price is generally reputed to have written some femininely inspired idyls, but even the initiate have never seen more than his Ballad on Driving in the Rain. But these were all in the Golden Age when poetry was a matter of inspiration. With the advent of Junior Year and the Great Unknown, passion gave way to book-keeping as a requisite for poetry. When it came to writing poetry, the Unknown had Lucius put to bed without saying his prayers, he had Vic up a sycamore tree yelling for help. He soon showed us that he was the one and only original, sterilized. Government Inspected, sugar cured, picnic twist Poet that had ever ambled bovinely down the Parnassus Turnpike. The man ' s very presence perspired poetry. It was our overwhelming sense of his superiority which hushed forevermore our humble lays, and the flowery meads where our more gentle Muses were wont to linger were given over to the pasturage of the fatted calf. It seemed sad to leave forever a field in which we had shown such youthful promise, but we were never more to pour out a lover ' s plaint in the graceful, swan-like hexameter. Our next flights to Helicon were on the broad back of the gentle essay. Shoep took a Fling at Bacon, and before he was through he had that Elizabethan worthy backed off the wharf into the bitter waters of Salt River. Arnold turned his toddling feet down that parlous path which Dante trod; in short, he went to Hell and found congenial company there. Why they let him come away, no one knows. Perhaps like another Orpheus, he sang them to sleep; at any rate on his return he penned a defense of that much maligned place of torment. It was witty and convincing enough to appear in the erstwhile orthodox Haverfordian, but it was a trifle too strong for the authorities of Westtown School, so they had all available copies burned by the common hangman of that institution. Encouraged by this unhoped-for mark of approval, he turned his pen towards an exposition of Bootlicking, a subject upon which few 126
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