Berea High School - Prima Luce Yearbook (Berea, NC)

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P R T M A T I] f F I JTv 1 i V 1. v i La V I Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds : — His path was rugged and sore, Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds, Through many a fen, where the serpent feeds, And man never trod before. And when on the earth he sunk to sleep, If slumber his eyelids knew, He lay where the deadly vine doth weep Its venomous tear and nightly steep The flesh with blistering dew ! And near him the she-wolf stirr’d the brake, And the copper-snake breathed in his ear, Till he starting cried, from his dream awake, “Oh, when shall I see the dusky lake, And the white canoe of my dear ?” He saw the lake, and a meteor bright Quick over its surface play’d. — “Welcome,” he said, “my dear one’s light !” And the dim shore echoed, for many a night, The name of the death-cold maid ; Till he hollow’d a boat of the birchen bark, Which carried him off from shore ; Far, far he follow’d the meteor spark ; The wind was high, and the clouds were dark, And the boat returned no more. But oft, from the Indian hunter’s camp, This lover and maid so true Are seen at the hour of midnight damp To cross the lake by a firefly lamp, And paddle their white canoe ! — Moore. INDIRECTION Fair are the flowers and the children, but their subtle suggestion is fairer; Rare is the rose-burst of dawn, hut the sceret that clasps it is rarer ; Sweet the exultance of song, but the strain that precedes it is sweeter ; And never was poem yet writ, but the meaning outmastered the meter. Never a daisy that grows, but a mystery guideth the growing; Never a river that flows, but a majesty scepter the flowing; Never a Shakespeare that soared, but a stronger than he did infold him; Nor ever a prophet foretells, but a mightier seer hath foretold him.

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PRIM A LUCE Golden Gems SOLITUDE To sit on rocks, to muse o’er flood and fell, To slowly trace the forest’s shady scene, Where things that own not man’s dominion dwell, And mortal foot hath ne’er or rarely been ; To climb the trackless mountain all unseen With the wild flock that never needs a fold ; Alone o’er steeps and foaming falls to lean ; This is not solitude ; ’tis but to hold Converse with Nature’s charms, and view her stores unroll’d. But ’midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men, To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess, And roam along, the world’s tired denizen, With none who bless us, none whom we can bless, Minions of splendor shrinking from distress ! None that, with kindred consciousness endued, If we were not, would seem to smile the less Of all that flatter’d, follow’d, sought, and sued; This is to be alone ; this, this is solitude ! — Lord. Byron. THE LAKE OF THE DISMAL SWAMP “They tell of a young man who lost his mind upon the death of a girl he loved, and who, suddenly disappearing from his friends, was never afterwards heard of. As he had frequently said, in his ravings, that the girl was not dead, but gone to the Dismal Swamp, it is supposed he had wandered into that dreary wilderness, and had died of hunger, or been lost in some of its dreadful morasses.” — Anon. “They made her a grave too cold and damp, For a soul so warm and true; And she’s gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp, Where, all night long, by a firefly lamp, She paddles her white canoe. “And her firefly lamp I soon shall see, And her paddle I soon shall hear ; Long and loving our life shall be, And I’ll hide the maid in a cypress tree, When the footsteps of death is near.” [ Page 96 ]

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Back of the canvas that throbs the painter is hinted and hidden ; Into the statue that breathes the soul of the sculptor is bidden ; Under the joy that is felt lie the infinite issues of feeling; Crowning the glory revealed is the glory that crowns the revealing ; Great are the symbols of being, but that which is symboled is greater ; Vast the create and beheld, but vaster the inward creator ; Back of the sound broods the silence, back of the gift stands the giving; Back of the hand that receives thrill the sensitive nerves of receiving. Space is as nothing to spirit, the deed is outdone by the doing ; The heart of the wooer is warm, but warmer the heart of the wooing; And up from the pits where these shiver, and up from the heights where those shine ; Twin voices and shadows swim starward, and the essence of life is divine. — Richard Rcalf. THE LAST KISS OF LOVE My love ! my wife ! Death that hath sucked the honey of thy breath, Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty : Thou art not conquered ; beauty’s ensign yet Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks, And death’s pale flag is not advanced there Oh, dear Juliet, Why art thou yet so fair ? Shall I believe That unsubstantial Death is amorous ; And that the lean abhorred monster keeps Thee here in dark to be his paramour ? For fear of that, I still will stay with thee And never from this palace of dim night Depart again : here will I remain With worms that are thy chambermaids; Oh, here Will I set up my everlasting rest ; And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars From this world-wearied flesh. — Eyes, look your last ! Arms, take your last embrace 1 and lips, O you The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss, A dateless bargain to engrossing death !— Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavory guide 1 Thou desperate pilot, now. at once run on The dashing rocks my sea-sick, weary bark. . . . Thus with a kiss I die. — Romeo and Juliet. [ Page 98 ]