Banning High School - San Gorgonian Yearbook (Banning, CA)

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= the humorous side of life as well as the sorrowful. Speaking of the king, one of the frequenters of the Mermaid says, “He waddled from the room, his rickety legs Doubling beneath that great green featherbed He calls his ‘person.’ ” By means of his power of understanding human nature and his mastery of language Noyes is able to give the most realistic. and poetical pictures one could hope to find of the men who made “the spacious times of great Elizabeth.” They are a happy, warm-hearted, philosophical set of men, each one as different from the others as the day the night, yet in spite of differences of age, character, wealth, or position, stauncher or truer friends would be hard to find. With great skill the author pictures his characters doing and saying just what would be expected of those very men in that very age, yet making them appear as real, human people in spite of the different age and different customs. He surrounds them with the atmosphere of the Elizabethan age picturing their life and character as if he had been present him- self at the Mermaid to listen to and join in the gay talk of its frequenters. Too, we find in these men the innate fineness and nobility of truly great men. An incident of “Big Ben” will show this. At the release of Jonson from prison the men were all rejoicing with singing and drinking at the Mermaid, when Ben’s heroic old mother appeared to welcome her son back from death. “And while Ben held That gaunt old body sobbing against his heart, Dekker, to make her think they paid no heed Began to sing, and very softly, now, Full forty voices echoed the refrain.” But Noyes introduces humorous touches in the midst of tears just as tears and laughter mingle in real life. Speaking of Ben Jonson he says: “Humming a song upon that old black settle: ‘Or leave a kiss but in the cup And I'll not ask for wine!’ But meanwhile he drank Malmsey!” PAGE FOURTEEN

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“Tales of a Mermaid Tavern” ACAULAY describes poetry as “the art of doing by means of words what the painter does by means of colours.” Of this art Noyes’ work is surely a wonderful example. A continual change of style is one way by which he obtains this effect. He imitates the different styles of poetry that are related to what he is talking about; for songs he has a style, for each poet another, and for every occasion a separate and distinct style. He has pic- tures wonderfully painted. Take for an example, “Under that foggy sunset London glowed, Like one huge cob-webbed flagon of old wine!” Where could you find this thought more fitly or beautifully expressed? In weird descriptions Noyes seems to excel. He relates the story of the burial of a queen. On the way to the burial, at mid night, the ghosts of the dead queen’s admirers surround the cof- fin, singing “like the night wind” in the “enormous silence” of the black mysterious night. Again they are “Bowed shadows weeping, Weeping, weeping, weeping, in a grief That still was built of silence, like the drip Of water from a frozen fountain head.” Again, in this wail from a murderer’s heart, Noyes by means of his understanding of human nature and his great ability in por- traying it accurately and poetically, makes us feel the despair and remorse of the man. “Somebody has taught The sea gulls how to wail around my hut All night like lost souls, and there is a face, A dead man’s face that laughs in every storm, And sleeps in every pool, along the coast.” i In sharp contrast to this is the mirthful portrait of the king, which, although not full of beautiful poetry, nevertheless gives a vivid picture, showing how Noyes is able to understand and paint PAGE THIRTEEN

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By means of a humorous old gravedigger he makes us laugh. “He buried generations of the poor, A countless host, and thought no more if it Than digging potatoes.” In his treatment of Shakespeare Noyes shows his greatest skill. The author’s choice of words brings out as vivid a picture as a painter with his crayons could do: Shakespeare, of “a bearded oval face, young with deep eyes.” He does not make him a prominent character but in spite of the fact he succeeds in making him appear the greatest charac- ter of all of the great characters. Shakespeare mingles sociably with them all in the Mermaid Inn, giving and returning jokes, having as good a time as any, loved and looked up to by the men, overawed by no one, not even by the pompous, haughty Bacon, seemingly one with the others; yet throughout the book it is no- ticeable that Shakespeare does not indulge so freely in wine, utter quite the same rough language or have quite the same philosophy as the others. So, having once read Noyes’ “Tales,” we can never again feel that these men are strange or remote, but rather must they be to us real, truly human friends. RUTH MULLEN, '17. To The Desert To you, most wonderful of spacious sands, To you, our California Desert wide,— Unequaled except in Sahara lands,— That stretches many miles from mountain side; To you my mesgger sonnet I address. On you, O luring sands and desert brush, At evening in your mystic purple dress, The brooding darkness falls with peaceful hush; Beneath the barren rocks you hold great wealth For man, when by the love of riches pressed. To bring back happiness and glowing health Your sands do offer us a place of rest. O, sands, wide stretching in gold and purple state, I cannot all your wonders half relate. MAY HARGRAVE, ’17. PAGE FIFTEEN