Danville High School - Medley Yearbook (Danville, IL)

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Divinity The moon is sunk in starry slumber, The soft, soft wind sighs a lullaby; The guardian stars, in countless number, Choir their praise to Him on high. The mists arise in fairy splendor, Slowly low’rs the cradle white; Night’s dark mantle folds around her, All is faded from our sight. Phaeton’s fire, and Dawn’s cool breath, Commingling—bursts a jeweled veil. ’Tis Morning! born of Evening’s death, That cries eternally, “All Hail!” Infinity, thy boundless vast, Is not for dwindling dust’s surmise, Thine endless future, thy pastless past! Let us worship and be wise. J. D. Muncie. “Eyes” When I was “little,” and used to read in exciting novels about the dreamy, langorous light which shone from underneath the heroine’s eyelids, or how the hero’s eyes glittered with a stern, death-defying look, I could never see such looks in real life. But now, since I am grown up—(is it?) or have seen more of life—(don’t laugh) or—there is a difference, anyway—I can look into people’s eyes and see and feel all things. Did you ever look into a baby’s round, blue eyes and feel the content, the sunshine mirrored there? I have. I have felt the glance of cold, gray eyes upon me, cold as steel on a winter’s night, as hard and unbending as the rocks, a glance which chilled and chilled, and numbed, and froze. Then there are the shining, twinkling eyes of a merry Irishman. They may be large or small, and of any color whatever. But how they make your heart expand, glow, and be glad again! I know a pair of beautiful eyes, so large, so brown, shimmering with a subdued light. I looked-into them and felt the soothing sense of being bathed in liquid radiance. “Ah! the beautiful soul of her!” I whispered. But one day I heard her talking loudly of the taxi-driver who had taken her out the night before—“And, kid, he says to me-----and I answers him back just like that, and says-” Dying eyes are horrible. They are wide open; they stare; and yet they are blank, unseeing, sickening, awful! We do not see them often—no! We should go mad if we did. I know a pair of the sweetest eyes! those of a girl who first was trustful; then she suffered, she doubted; for years she suffered and doubted everything. Then she fell in love. In the days of doubt the blue eyes, gray then, were cold, suspicious, hard, the eyelids compressed, the eyes never fully opened. One day she gazed, unobserved, at her beloved. The wide, blue eyes looked steadily; misty they were, full of a soft, luminous light; trustful they were, full of the innocence, the fresh hopes of childhood. And I know that this life was born again. Eyes!—they tell the story. Edna K. Sackett. Page Twenty-nine

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cords. Autocracy, or rules of brute force, has ruined nations and wrecked empires. It has devastated fertile and fruitful countries. It has led multitudes of brave men to destruction. It has left millions of people suffering in the throes of agony and death. It stands before the potent tribunal of public opinion as convicted of the blackest crimes in history. Democracy has much to its credit. When the Pilgrims, unable to endure longer the penalties of a tyrant king, came to the New World and founded a free colony open to all, they were the real pioneers of democracy. Weary of autocratic rule, they came to these shores to establish a more democratic government, free from the persecutions of a self-glorified ruler. But democracy was not so easily established. The pernicious influence of autocracy reached across the Atlantic; but the newly formed colony refused to longer bow to the behests of a distant ruler, declared that equality and liberty were the birthrights of all men, and prepared to fight in defense of their rights. After eight long years of bitter struggle, altho matched against the most powerful nation on the earth, who boasted jurisdiction in every quarter of the globe, they defeated their oppressors and were left to enjoy their richly deserved peace. Then it was that the long, broad avenue of human possibilities was opened and democracy was given its greatest advance. The fate of democracy is at stake. If the Central Powers should be victorious, it will have received its death blow, the uncounted centuries of progress will count as naught, and the heroes and martyrs of civilization will have lived and died in vain. The opposition to democracy has never been as powerful as now. Autocracy has challenged civilization. The crowned heads of Central Europe have turned loose the engines of destruction until the land has become a vast area of ruin. They have recognized the onward march of democracy and for years have been preparing to meet it; and today the whole world stands aghast at their deeds. They have upset the whole structure of civilization. In their thirst for increased power, for empire supremacy, for territorial acquisitions, they have defied the combined forces of democracy; and we, as a nation with the allied enemies of Germanic autocracy, are fighting for humanity, for the world’s freedom from the divine rights of kings, fighting for democracy and human liberation, and when the war clouds are rolled away and the mightiest of human struggles is over, Heaven grant that civilization shall witness the downfall of autocracy and the greatest epoch in history; the making of the world “safe for democracy.” J. Kieran. Page Twenty-eight

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 And Then He Thought He had lost his last cent; he was alone. There were two courses—he could return to Nome and telegraph for more funds and leave from thence for the States, or he could risk the silent North a while longer. Not long did he deliberate, for what did Civilization offer him? More disappointments, perhaps, and unhappiness. Yes, it would be better to brave solitude, the solitude that places one beyond the reach of wily minds and plotting humans, the solitude that knows no urging, no commanding, no threatening—unless it be Conscience. And Thomas Bagdad declared himself possessed of that vague quality (if I may call it such) only to a scant degree. So it happened that Thomas Bagdad of Boston Common and Boston Millionaires, bested in love and the deplorable state that follows, set out from Arscove, Alaska, for the murky peaks that were silhouetted against a threatening sky. To make his solitude complete, he took with him a native guide, who spoke a language entirely unknown to him, and he one of the best language “sharks” that Harvard boasted. Morever, this guide was a true child of the North; the brooding, ominous silence and the significant vastitude was reflected in the unquestioning, unanswering eye, and the never-varying, stealthy gait. Four dogs, a long sledge, enough provisions to last a couple weeks, completed the outfit. It was, as I have mentioned, an ugly glowering, threatening day. Thick, silent clouds cast their gloomy, heavy shade upon the white-crusted earth. A slight, swishing wind, a token of what was to come, picked a few snowflakes from their beds and whirled them into the brisk air with a gay madness. The dogs sniffed knowingly and whimpered piteously; the guide shook his shaggy head, but Bagdad gave the reckless laugh of the desperate and was off. In his dealings with the men of Arscove, Bagdad had lost even his watch, a precious heirloom. So he reckoned that three days of his adventure were gone, when only twenty-four hours had passed. As night fell there was such a slight change in the eternal gloom, that it was imperceptible that the earth had started on another rotation. For two days all went well; they stopped only for food and then were again on their way. When the third day came Thomas Bagdad began to grow restless. He no longer sat listlessly upon the sled. The eternal squeaking of the sledge runners upon the crusted snow worried him. The measured monotony of the merciless creaking and rusty grating of his companion’s heavy snow-shoes upon the packed snow caused him to twitch nervously and at times to cry out as if in pain. So Bagdad walked awhile, rode awhile, and stopped frequently to scold his hapless dogs. The spirit that had developed in civilization, midst turmoil and action, could endure the oppressing silence no longer. It was the fourth day when he turned the sledge around and the faithful dogs retraced their steps with renewed vigor. On and on sped the dogs, as if fleeing from a dreadful scene of fright. The wind grew bolder and stronger. It no longer merely twirled the particles from the ground, but whirled them from a snow cloud in the sky with violent fury. Stronger and stronger it roared; the air became heavier, denser, and colder. The dogs, as if to escape the furious path, turned this way, and staggered that way. Bagdad looked for Paoda. Within the few feet that his blinded sight could penetrate, he was not to be seen. In sheer frenzy Bagdad clung to the hurling sledge. Twice, three times, it was turned over with terrific force, yet he hung on. For over an hour, he hung there more mad than sane. The whining of his dogs grew feebler and feebler, and finally ceased. The sledge stopped. His weakened Page Thirty