Branksome Hall - Slogan Yearbook (Toronto, Ontario Canada)

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ourth Form

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24 The Branksome Slogan Clouds As I lay stretched out on the downs, with the sound of the sea beating rhymically against the cliffs beneath, I watched History in the making. High above me, as if in a different world, England was being attacked and valiantly defended by the ' ' few to whom so many owe so much . It was horribly fascinating to watch them swerve, turn, and dive into the clouds, chasing each other as if in some crazy game; sick- ened, I watched a tiny dot fall from the sky, a llaming pyre, as a gallant defender plummeted to death below. Words of a young poetess came echoing through my brain — ' ' a broken body in a burning plane, but his soul goes soaring on . There was not always action over our section of the coast and, dur- ing the miHiuy hours I spent in fruitless search for the hordes from the sky, I learned to glory in the beauty of the clouds. Early in the mornings my eyes sought to pierce the damp stillness o£ the mist. I gazed upon the impeneti able, bland, gray curtain above. I saw with wonder how that mass of vapour disintegrated and let the first yellow rays of early morning sun breathe through to Wtake the sleepy world. It was summer, and, as soon as the brisk breeze had swept the last cobweb of mist and dew from the eiarth, all was bright and warm. Pure white clouds, like snowbails pitched by playful children, blotted the blue heavens and glided smoothly, like snowy swans swimming effortlessly in calm serenity over a magic lake. Weird shapes caught my fancy and I watched, intrigued by this slow motion kaleidoscope of white, pale gray, and sun-tinted clouds. Clouds, however, have their darker moments too, and sometimes the sun was eclipsed by a mass of white and gray clouds like those from a Constable landscape, bringing a sudden shadow over the country-side. I watched clouds unite in ever densifying bands and chains until the sky w as over-hung with a heavy wall of dull gray. The Channel, obeying the mood of the sky, swelled in sullen weaves, smooth, silent, and gray. A deadened, muffled silence like that one senses early in the morning after a heavy snowstorm, pervaded the atmosphere. Then, at last, as if the low hanging clouds became tired of carrying their buredn, soft, fine rain fell. At other times, when the wind kept high all day, I grew dizzy watching the little wind-blown smudges scudding merrily across the sky, blown by the wind into almost transparent, feathery, trailing veils. By late afternoon the sky would be ridged with row upon row of herring- bone clouds, through Which the descending sun cast its last brilliant rays upon the land beneath. It reminded me of how, only too soon, man-made beams pointing upward would reveal death from the skies.

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26 The Branksome Slogan Sometimes I watched when the evening breeze arose, gathering- the scattered clouds under her wing until all the sky was clear, save for the frieze of high, puffy, intangible clouds over the west which the darkening sky had not yet swallowed intO ' its unfathomable nothingness. On clouds like these, the last rosy glow of the departed sun lived for a few seconds in luminous beauty. Then night reigned and the wind was still. I uttered a silent prayer of thanksgiving to Him ' ' who maketh the clouds His chariots: who walketh upon the wings of the wind. ELVA PARKINSON. Lost The steaming jungle was silent. The unearthly stillness was in itself a reason for his terror. The sun beat down through the canopy of verdant green, slanting obliquely, and met the jungle tloor in faded patches of lig ht. Great hulks, of trees loomed in the murky shade, their limbs in an embrace of death by long, thick vines which curled and twisted like serpents of evil. Here and there, exotic blooms glowed against the sombre background, almost sinister in their strange beauty. The black soil oozed water; so that at every step his feet sank into the mud. Though it was not yet noon, the air was hot and fetid, heavy with moisture and teeming with tiny insects. He found it extremely difficult to advance, for at every step he had to force his way through the lush undergrowth and matted vines. How long he had been walking he did not know, for in his fever-ridden mind time had ceased to be. A large beetle, black and shiny, ran paist his foot. He stamped at it viciously, losing for an instant the iron will which had kept back all his anger and frustration. The heat and fever had made him dizzy. He felt again the onslaught of sickness. His head was suddenly very light and his body was shaken by a severe chill. One memory kept appearing before him, much as he prayed that it might be blotted out forever. — The plane, its nose buried in the hill, a blazing trap for the other member of its crew, was etched sharply against the wall of his mind. Of hov he had been thrown clear at the crash he had no recollection, but he could hear still the cries of his companions. He felt he could almost see them, as he fought at the buckled door, even then too late to free them. On and on he staggered, blindly tearing at the vines and foliage in sickness and despair. Mercifully, delerium crept over his tired