Holten High School - Onion Yearbook (Danvers, MA)

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THE HOLTEN 13 The author besides being a poet is wholly and undividedly American. As a representative of America in this modern era he has sought for indi- vidualism in style and thought. His style is unique, for the poem is writ- ten in blank verse, in free verse, in rhyme, and in prose. His poetry is rugged, clean cut, and vivid. The fact that he was the first ever to at- tempt an epic of America is proof enough of his individual daring-call it inconstancy, changeablness, or what you will. He attempted to catch the spark of Americanism and put it into his poem. In his Invocation, which is one of the finest examples of good verse today, he describes the genuine American literature and ex- presses the hope that he may capture the American Muse. That he realizes the greatness of his undertaking, the adverse criticism and the failure to appeal to another's imagination is stated in these lines: American muse, whose strong and diverse heart, So many men have tried to under- stand But only make it smaller with their art, Because you are as various as your land, As mountainous deep, as flowered with blue rivers, Thirsty with deserts, buried under snows, As native as the shape of Navajo quivers. And native, too, as the sea-voyaged rose. Swift runner, never captured or sub- dued, Seven-branched elk beside the moun- tain stream, That half a hundred hunters have pursued But never matched their bullets with the dream, Where the great huntsmen failed, I set my sorry And mortal snare for your immortal quarry. Yet, as we hunt you down, you must escape And we pursue a shadow of our own That can be caught in a magician's cape But has the flatness of a painted stone. Read casually with the mind of a realist the poem has the fiatness of a painted stone, but we can catch the inmost spirit of its substance in our magician's cape, our imagination. That underlying spirit is the spirit of John Brown. He was the stone hurl- ed from the Stone Mountain, War, which struck and slowly crumbled bit by bit the strong barrier of slavery. He started all the other stones in the mountain on their way and they struck the wall with even greater force. And as the war was fought, the slaves were freed, North and South were one again-yet what was Benet's conclusion? Has anything changed? Even though the wall was broken down, was it and all it signi- fied completely blotted out? No. The slaves of industry still remain: labor is the slave of capital: poverty is the slave of wealth: personal freedom is the slave of convention. John Brown, your spirit is here and well needs to be, for- Nothing is changed, John Brown, nothing is changed. l Caroline Butler.

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12 T THE HOLTEN Harper's Ferry to Appamattoxg great men and small men. But Benet's purpose was not mere- ly to paint pictures. He was a poet whose duty it is to interpret the pic- tures that he has painted. He reveal- ed the heart of a runaway slave or the soul of a general with the insight of a poet. He wrote a book that was not a book but living men. He look- ed into men's souls and made them live again for us. Listen to his des- cription of the death of Stonewall Jackson: He lay on the bed After the arm had been lopped from him, grim and silent, Refusing importunate death with ter- rible eyes. Now and then He spoke, with the old curt justice that never once Denied himself or his foe or any other The rigid due they deserved, as he saw that due. IF Pk Pk PF 2 Pk H4 Dk PF The slow time wore. They had to tell him at last That he must die. The doctors were brave enough, No doubt, but they looked awhile at the man on the bed And summoned his wife to do it. So she told him. He would not believe at first. Then he lay awhile . Silent, while some slow, vast reversal of skies Went on in the dying brain. At last he spoke. All right , he said. She opened the Bible and read. It was spring outside the window, the air was warm, The rough, plank house was full enough of the spring. They had had a good life together, these two middle-aged Calm people, one reading aloud now, the other silent, They had passed hard schools. They were in love with each other And had been for many years. Now that tale was told. They had been poor and odd, found each other trusty, Begotten children, prayed, disliked to be parted, W Had family-j okes, known weather and other matters, Planned for an age ,they were famous now, he was dying. The clock moved on, the delirium be- gan. The watchers listened, trying to catch the words: Some awed, one broken-hearted, a few, no doubt, Not glad to be there precisely, but in a way Glad that, if it must happen, they could be there. It is a human emotion. The dying man Went back at first to his battles, as soldiers do. He was pushing a new advance With the old impatience and skill, over tangled ground, A cloudy drive that did not move as he willed Though he had it clear in his mind. They were slow today Tell A. P. Hill to push them-push the attack- Get up the guns. The cloudy assault dispersed. There were no more cannon. The ground was plain enough now. He lay silent, seeing it so, while the watchers listened. He had been dying once, but that was a dream. The ground was plain enough now. He roused himself and spoke in a dif- ferent voice. Let us cross the river, he said, and rest under the shade of the trees.

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14 THE HOLTEN THE MEMORY FLOWER Dear Mothers and Dads, Friends, and Teachers: Time is again up to his old tricks. He is again flinging into the Past what were the Present and the Fu- ture for us, but unfortunately we can still cling to what has gone before. There is a flower called Memory which grows in old-fashioned gar- dens. In the full bloom of its season, the blossom iiames blood-red, but as the days pass on, whiter and paler grow the petals. Memory has been the inspiration and conviction of na- tions and religions, it has wafted its fragrant aroma to dispel moments of great despondency and bewilder- mentg and always has it been our gentle guide and reminder when fool- ish impetuosity would have led us to the yawning verge. Within the blossom cup of every Memory flower, there nestle the mem- ories of many things 3-yet those memories which remain the freshest and most fragrant are the simple pleasures of Life. Those pleasures which at the time appeal so vividly to the five senses are the pleasures which quickest fade. The pleasures which bring deep satisfaction to the soul are the true pleasures. When we feel content with what Life has offered, when we no longer feel an urge for an indefinite Something, then we are experiencing complete en- joyment. To be contented, however, and to fall into a rut where neither ambition nor outside interest stirs are two vastly different states. Con- tentment is by no means dormant, for it, too, rises still to meet certain idealsg yet in time of failure, content- ment has a solid foundation to fall back upon, while the disappointed star-gazer falls through empty space. Contentment dwells in solitudes where Nature has her own sweet way and holds a store of rich discoveries for the keen eye,-discovery both in our surroundings and in ourselves. How little we hold communion with ourselves, how little we know our- selves. Too quickly we reject our own higher thoughts, for they seem to have no proper setting in the modern lives we lead. We are continually im- poverishing what is noble and fine in us for what is more commonplace, we are subordinating the fine themes of the old masters to the trivial ex- pression of our age. While we con- tinue to live with our eyes averted from what is real and what is truly beautiful, with our thoughts always a part of the mob's mixing bowl, we shall never really know ourselves. We need to seek the solitude of the woods and to lie upon some bank of pine- needles where the sun is warm and the smell of the earth is all-pervading, and where there is the drowsy hum of drowsy insects,or the stealthy crack- ling of the twigs disturbed by a cu- rious bird. We need to see the pine trees rising boldly and independent- ly with the blue of the sky above, and Infinity beyond. Then we give free rein to those hitherto suppressed thoughts, then we experience true pleasure. The farther we try to travel away from Nature, the greater is the jerk that pulls us back. All man-made in- ventions upon which we put such a premium are after all only the proper application of Nature's resources. The resources have always been there, but not the eye keen enough to perceive. Each eye was placed where only one