Charlotte High School - Witan Yearbook (Rochester, NY)

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T H E W I T A N RULES Aristotle, Pericles, And. old Eratosthenes; Poor Alcibiades, Unfortunate Demosthenes— It must have been very hard With such long names on your card. Must you have had one long ago, To be wise. I want to know ? Apostrophes to Jupiter, Mercury and Demiter, Odes and elegaic themes Were the ancient poets’ dreams. Must you have made them thus and so To be a poet long ago? My words are not o'er-polished art, Hut surely they cry from the heart; No coat, I know, however choice, Would change a thrush’s magic voice, Why cover up a meaning pure With mystic words and forms ob- scure ? I’M GLAD, ARE YOU? How good it seems tc think that we Have finished shoveling snow Writh coal at fifteen dollars per, Wc bid cold winter “Go!” The robins chirping in the trees, The crocus peeping through, The pussy-willows bursting out Bring cheei to me—and you. How glad we are to welcome spring The time when all feel gay; When cold hard winds nave ceased to blow And work is turned to play. Evelyn Gallery, '28. CHER1E, ADIEU “The winds of fate blow strong, Chorie, and the time is not far off.” “What mean you, my father?” Naught, let it pass.” A sudden gust of vicious wind moaned down the chimney and tore at the embers on the health. With undulating swift- ness the girl crossed the room and gazed at the red gloom-dusked sky. A Hash of jagged greenish-white tore the dead-silk canopy overhead. The booming thunder, like the roll of countless drums, swelled, cresccndoed, blared its triumphant paean of night —then all was still save the groan of the pain-wracked wind. The eyes, deep ocean-blue and slightly glazed were half-closed. A stray breath of wind played with the white mane of his hair. “The cannon, Cherie, they are come?” “No, my father, ’tis only Thor toy- ing with his hammer in the heavens.” A dreamy smile flitted and danced in and out of the seams of the gentle old face. Quietly his eyes closed and his head ceased nodding to the dance of the fire-goblins. Far off on the horizon a rent ap- peared in the purple-dark canopy and a white stream of light peered hes- itatingly forth. For a moment it wridened in piercing beauty, and the snarl of the wind changed to a low song as it bore a gently soul through the rift in the canopy to fairer lands beyond. An entrancing sweet tremulous smile played oddly about the corners of the girl’s mouth as she gazed through the window, for she had seen, and turning to the now still form, she knew. Clifford Carpenter, ’27. WINDOWS Why is it that on cold days the window nearest me is the one always raised? Whether in a street-car, at school or at home, some fresh air fiend (with two or three sweaters on) remarks, “It’s getting terribly stuffy in here,” and opens the one window in the whole room through which the wind will blow directly on me. The fiend invariably removes himself from the immediate vicinity of the gale usually affected. Since vacating for me would mean the gathering of mis- cellaneous papers, books, packages, and disentangling myself from the desk or chair, I remain, shivering and miserable. On warm days, whatever window’s I open are immediately closed, with the explanation that the draught is disturbing someope. 1 smile and suffer. Whatever the dictionaries may soy, a window is a contrivance from which to drop and break valuable articles, through which worthless ones are blown, and by which much discomfort is derived. 30

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THE W 1 T A N DEAD-LINE Twas the night before the dead-line, and all through the place Every in-mate was running as if in a race, For the Witan was forming, and had to be made Before the last ray of the daylight should fade. Miss Sharer was panting like a dog held in leash. She had to—the finish was just out of reach. Our Baxter was fuming o’er some poor writer's junk; Lyman was wailing that the paper would flunk; Charlton was swimming in a maze of white sheets Ol advertisers’ copy. In the various seats Were readers galore, with their blue pencil marks Running all o'er the paper. The poetry sharks Were filling the waste-baskets with poor poets’ stuff And proof readers also were getting quite rough, For printers and setters were going all wrong, Putting slugs in too short and lines in too long. Galley-proofs streamed all 'round the room. Students’ copy was flying to waste-basket doom, Yea, the Witan was making, but, oh, how so late. Yet the Witan was rushing to make dead-line date. A week now has passed, and in our old den The posters are up. But nine out of ten Must be changed all around, for the Witan will come A week from the date when it's s'pposed to be clone. John Donoghue MY PRAYER Sweet are the notes from the honey'd throats which carol at ev'ning-tide; In the purple hush, the hermit thrush has avoice which few have vied. And who but hark when they hear the lark, which is the Briton's pride? Rut the robin's song in the morning And the wren's sweet voice thru the day, The pigeon's call in the twilight— These are all for which I pray. Some may quest for the bunting's nest, for his glorious color and coat; The gold high-hole and the oriole in scarlet and marigold gloat; Tho’ most men pray for plumage gay— on burnished brilliance dote— The robin's song in the morning, And the wren's sweet voice thru the day, The pigeon’s call in the twilight— These are all for which 1 pray. 29

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T ii E W I I A N THE THINKER We have all seen pictures of that famous Greek statue of a man in deep thought; his eyes gaze fixedly on the ground; a broad hand supports a fi. n chin; head bent with the weight of a massive brow. The sculptor has rightfully called him The Thinker. Of what is he thinking? Is it of some new theory that will rival those of Aristotle ? Of a new style of archi- tecture that will make the great temples of the Acropolis seem un- couth ? Perhaps he is thinking of his past achievements, on account of which men universally acknowledge him great. His thoughts may ba centered on some lonely isle, on home and friends. He is about to die; he is thinking 01 his life oi its triumphs ant1 ne- feats, of its joys and sorrows, of its peace and love or turmoil and hate. He is an orator and statesman who would The applause of listening sen- ates command! a great public ques- tion confronts him: the invasion of the Persians, or war with Sparta, or with Macedonia. He is a philosopher; he is putting the eternal thoughts of Socrates and Plato to shame; he laughs at Zeus and Athena, scorns their tawdriness. Why wonder what this figure is thinking? His head is of solid marble! Charles Strobel, ’28. A GEOMETRIC AXIOMDENT The bootlegger had intercepted the boundary line between the areas Can. and U. S. A. with a load ot rum and other products and was constructing the locus of points equidistant from the railroad line, D. H., taking the direction of N. Y. Suddenly the road made an angle and intersected the line D. H. diagonally at a point X. A locomotive was describing a curve in the railroad line and heading for points south. The engineer was sounding the whistle for the intersec- tion, warning people who did not wish to go west.” I can make the opposite side as easy as pi, said the bootlegger, squaring his round shoulders and tak- ing a firmer grip on the direction disk of his rumbus. Rut the powers contained in the surface between his ears would not equal Vfc the sense of proportion of a sick ant of the ark. At this point his cylinders missed twice, a chord intercepted the point of a tack and the rumbus vvas met squarely by the N-gon which caused it to be transformed into a wreck tangle. Although the bootlegger was not eliminated, manipulations had to be resorted to in order to extract him from the quantity of cylinders, chords, twisted angles and segments, the sum of which equaled the remainder of the rumbus. The bootlegger extended a line” to the authorities but could not prove it to be straight because his theorems were not supplemented and did not co- incide with the truth. When his identity was established, he was transferred to a prism called S. S.. at which point he is now located. His number is 1323. “When a N-gon meets a rumbus a wreck tangle is formed.” —Q. E. D. Frank Hutchinson. THUNDER ON THE LEFT Christopher Morley Reviewed by LeFevre This is reviewed by Mildred Le- Fevre, a story in which the movement is almost entirely intellectual, rather fanciful and imaginative, but present- ing the sad truth that as we grow older and acquire sophistication and worldliness, we lose much of our sin- cere natural manner, and thus miss much in life. Some children, who realize what hypocrites their parents are, decide to spy into the grown-up world. In the meantime, they grow up and meet again. Each one has changed and be- come more or less a member of the modern grown-up world of intrigue, except Martin, who has remained the same candid personality, as in his youth. His innocent childlikeness in con- trast to the sophistication of the others results in very perplexing mental struggles. 31