Brearley School - Brearley Book Yearbook (New York, NY)

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herself to be subjected to enough heat to cook a meal, then pay the price of a nice dress for the sake of having a permanent wave, is the limit of absurdity and a living proof of feminine stupidity. Any one who does something I do not do, wears something I do not wear, says something I do not say, or reads something I do not enjoy reading is, to me, an idiot. Einstein says that, as everything is relative to something, we must choose our standard. I have chosen myself. Any one who differs from me is wrong and any one who is wrong is absurd. PAULINE MANSIIIP. PROUD WATERS Green, high-crested, the waves race into the shore And break themselves, and gather up their pieces, And rush away, and returning again as before They shatter again into pieces. They are clear as ice, and then they break the clea rness And tear apart in a bubbling milky foam. But fand this is what makes the wild waves' queernessj They rise again from the foam. fTo ruin themselves they reassemble themselves. They are fierce, they are wild, they are foolish, say what you will. They exult in their strength when they pound on the rocks' rough shelves Which they cannot do when they take good care of themselves, Remaining clear, and staying quiet and still.j It is not a good life to be an upheaving wave That crashes forever against a stony shore, And I know that no power on earth is able to save The waves that break on the shore. But I do not like this slipping about the sea, I have broken before and I wish to break again, With the rest of the ocean half jealous, half laughing at me As I rush at the rocks again. BETSY WYCKOFF, Poetry Prize 1930. E553

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JEANNE D'ARC Armour of silver, and a milk-white horse They gave you, and you found a holy sword. Those are a saint's own trappings, and, of course You were a faithful servant of the Lord. But a black charger had become you best, And golden mail that dazzled all men's eyes, And a great sword that had not taken rest And spent a century hidden from the skies. Queens dress in white and silver, and a king Must have a sword with relics in the hilt. You needed no saint's prayers for pardoning, No virgin robes to show you free from guilt, Though every man, through some obscure device, Considers fire wickeder than ice. BETSY WYCKOITF. DIFFERENCE FROM ME IS THE MEASURE OF ABSURDITYH ' Our sense of humor, on which we pride ourselves so much, is merely our ability to appreciate absurdity. A situation in which the acting characters are thrown out of their habitual places in their routine of life, either by loss of dignity, or by being put in some incongruous position, seems ridiculous and therefore amusing to us. Very few of us, however, are able to laugh when we ourselves are the victims of the joke. To be amused by the plight of some one else, we must feel, at the time, a sense of security from a similar plight. I think it funny, when, walking along the street, more or less inconspicuously dressed, I see an old lady arrayed in all the finery of fifty years ago. Were I dressed likewise, however, I should understand the old lady's annoyance at being made fun of, and should pity her instead of joining in the laughter. I indulge my taste for violent color in orange and brown sweaters, red dresses and green hats. I think Agnes Halsey is thoroughly ridiculous to indulge hers in white linen dresses with red embroidery. I should never wear them. Therefore, in my opinion, they are not worthy of being worn. My hair is straight. I think any woman who will sit for four hours with every hair on her head held up so tightly that she can not even move her eyebrows, and allow E543

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TWO SON N ETS I Spring walks along the streets unheralded, Only across the hardness of a wall, Where lately winter stiffened and lay dead, The thin pale Hakes of yellow sunlight fall. No flourishings of petals on the air Or smells of wakened earth to tell her way, Without a single fiower for her hair Spring walks along the city streets today. Now where two rows of houses turn and meet, The sky is clean and blue, and all around Faces lean from the windows. People's feet Go down the pavement with a happier sound And clothes hung out upon the roofs to dry Are bright and fluttering blossoms on the sky. II The flattened rain gleams from the streets tonight, It is a hesitant and quiet thing, Stepping with footsteps lingering and light, The thin and sorrowful raining of the spring Across the lamp-light, fine and delicate As any veil of gossamer and lace, The split drops shimmer, warm and intimate Its dripping fingers trail across your face. The night rain is a friend to walls and stone And hisses on the pavement gratefully, Whispering in a pattering monotone Of little waters running to the sea And fresh-turned earth, and in its wetness lies A sense of dripping fields and open skies. MARGARET Kmnrn Poeiry Prize 1931 I56l'