Halifax Grammar School - Grammarian Yearbook (Halifax, Nova Scotia Canada)

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oetrvj — Second yize Michele Raymond — M3 LINES Lines can go on forever; Lines can go on and on; Follow your line ' til it leads you Up to the gate of the dawn Still your line passes onward, Through the horses that guard the Gate To the Land of Eternal Dawn. Lines can go on for ever; Lines can go on and on. Follow your line ' Till it leads you . . . To the God who radiates Dawn. DISCOVERY Jane DouU— U2 As the light of evening spread through the sky, she stood, looking out into an invisible eastern horizon, yet seeing nothing, neither the ostentatious automobiles, nor the stolid square brick houses, all alike, nor the struggling brown shoots of grass, nor the brightly illuminated picture windows. Nor did she wish to see these things, for they could never give her whatever it was she needed. In exasperation, she wheeled away abruptly from the window, and as if dismissing what she wished no more of, firmly drew the curtain across. The rest of the family, she knew, would be occupied with their usual amusements; the television was loudly blaring out some trite entertainment; she could rest assured that her absence would go unnoticed. She looked about once more, slung an old coat over her should- ers, then slipped unobtrusively out. She threw a glance at the car, complacently waiting in the garage; no, it would not serve her purposes; it was too much an inexorable part of what she must escape. Yet, think- ing better of it, she turned toward the garage, and, in a moment, under her apathetic hand, the vehicle was gliding down the drab street. Over miles of asphalt she drove, until at last she alighted by a deserted field. She could see endless stretches of grey looking highway (an inspired creation of man, she reflected 15

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re oety i — Tirst rrizc William Price— U3 i GLORY OF WAR— TWENTIETH CENTURY VERSION I touch emptiness After the bomb Has dropped. Feel the sores Of poison in your veins. Do not cry. The dead do not complain Or rant against fate. Generals prepare defences. They build more missiles To kill for peace And establish the brotherhood of man. I sit in the radioactive wilderness And cut my hand on a piece of glass. My land is dead. Why kill it? It could not harm you — life does not kill. Murderer, you destroyed my life. And yours. Sentry at gibbet, you wait for your own hanging. Sorrow Sitting in the darkness moaning Cries like the radiation-sick child At Nagasaki. The century dies In anguish, in a defecation Of nuclear waste. Loneliness Is dying by the ruined sea alone And lost in thoughts Of madness. Death Approached like an idiot, gibbering And laughing. I run To get away Or die in a corner with myself Avoid this nightmare. But I can ' t And end Like everyone else. A CHRISTIAN VISION A HAIKU FOR ALL MEN It was a gull, a seagull crying To the jagged wilderness Of hope, and faith, and love undying And eternal tenderness. A sea-song, fresh with the air Of salt cod singing to God And fishwharves lying Wrapped in grace. Man ' s sorrow Wrapping grief In small packages For me alone 14

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wryly) but to the other side, even under her fset lay grass, awakening from a winter of torpor, and even further away, the wild, but serene ocean. Ruthlessly turning her back on the man-made world, she stared coldly into the dis- tance, thinking. Once, she had carelessly whiled away year after year in a small quiet town, absorbed into the easy and simple sweep of pleasure. Everywhere there stood white frame houses, impeccable picket fences, neat vegetable plots; and the old general store filled with young and old, crying for or laughing about trifles. Later, however, the sun having set over this village, she was immersed in the pressures and excitement of the bustling city, where she found herself, day and night, reading and writing voraciously, and taking into her life culture and sophistication. And when she returned to that old village, the apparent calm and superfluity of the old existence had, somehow palled. These years had given her such a store of nervous energy and such an appetite for the novel and the interesting that domesticity was unbearable. Her marriage was by now over, which itself was rather a relief. She had read; she had observed, so she thought, the best of the world; she frequently engaged in intelligent conversation; she could not endure gossip or small talk. She liked to consider herself highly cultivated and educated. Yet, she was no longer satisfied. For some reason, life had come to seem dreary, shal- low, without hope. The weight of this hopelessness was bearing down on her beyond endur- ance. Was she not living a full life? Had she not everything which could make life worth living? For the first time she felt uncertciin of the answer to these questions: she felt her- self to be unprepared for the truth. She had never been so querulous, so irritable, so intolerant as she was now; or perhaps had this always been her real nature, latent but ever-present, and had she only now recognized it? Had all these years been smothered in oblivion? And finally she realized that the only possible conclusion was the one she least wanted to face. No, life as she had been living it was not life at all, but nothing more than a pageant, colourful, perhaps, but empty; and when this pageant was stripped momentarily of its bright, outward trappings, nothing remained. As the world sank into darkness and the stars rushed out, she walked through the field, thoughtfully pressing down the grass with her feet, and meditating this hard fact with all its implications. And when, at last, she returned to the harsh world of her fellow-creat- ures, no, she had no answers. Life, death, truth — the meanings of these words which have eluded mortals since the beginning of time eluded her also. However, a flash of light had hit her; by its illumination, she now sensed that the tangible alone was nothing, as was the intang- ible if it was not comprehended from all angles, but there was something greater and of more value, without which no one had everything and every one had nothing. This, she was sure, had not been suggested by her own reasoning; it must be a product of the depths of the subconscious; for how she should understand it was quite uncertain. What was such a revelation to her? Was she not numbered among the enlightened, those who knew life and what mattered? However, the same sub-conscious voice interjected a note of discord. What had been her goal — to enlighten herself, others, the world, to utilize the re- sources of the world to her own ends or those of others, to save the universe from destruction? This question she never could have answered, for she had never had a goal; meaningful ideals, a philosophy of life, ambitions probably, and aspirations certainly, she had had; but never a goal. And, once again within her silent dark house, she gave herself up to a desperate strain- ing toward reconciliation of idealism and realism, possibility and impossibility. This reconcili- ation could never come about in a few short hours; it was the task of a lifetime. Yet, when she finally collapsed on her bed, in the early hour of the morning, she sensed that to seek to achieve this end was as necessary to her as life itself. . 16