Hunter College High School - Argus Yearbook (New York, NY)

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Henry sprang from his seat in horror. The man was mad! He bent in anguish over his dying friend to question him, wrest that last meaning from him-but it was too late. Hepburn was dead. That last wish had wrung all life from him. Graves sank back into his seat. There, still before him, the bony finger still pointed, hang- ing out of the bed like a last, unshakable determination that would not die. It demanded. It insisted. Graves seized it and stowed it beneath the cover, murmuring- Yes, Lewis, yes-your part in Hamlet-- III THE EMPIRE THEATRE Clown fSingsj: But age, with his stealing steps, Hath claw'd me in his clutch, And hath shipped me intil the land, As if I had never been such. fThrows up a skull.l Hamlet: 'AThat skull had a tongue in it, and could sing onceg how the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were Cain's jaw- bone. lt might be the pate of a politician, which this ass now o'erreaches. The curtain rose on the churchyard scene. Hepburn's last wish had been obeyed. Graves, the clown, stood mutely beside his fellow jesters, ruefully anticipating the moment when after a final cynical epigram he must lift his spade and toss the withered skull of his friend across the stage. The moment came at last. He cast the shrivelled object into the air, and shrank in horror as he beheld it crash to the floor in flaky fragments. He bent dismayed over the pieces. The curtain fell. A few minutes later, a man sat lost in a labyrinth of thought. He saw Hepburn again, as he had been accustomed to stand, crouching in the wings, watching, wanting, a chance-Life had not given it to him. Death had been a relief from hoping, and a grim. opportunity-to play in Hamlet-But even that-even that. 'iprovidentialln-He buried his face in his hands - Alas, poor Yorickf' he muttered, l knew him. thirty-one -i

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fell and dragged the heavy marble pillar down upon him. When his companions extricated him from the crumbled ruins of the pillar, they found him all but a ruin himself. His body was horribly mangled. Henry lifted him and succeeded in carrying him off-stage. Many minutes later he was able to ask in a feeble voice that he be taken home. Graves hastened to do so and, clad as he was in grease-paint and clown's mantle, called for the aid of another actor, They bore Hepburn outside, where a taxi had been sum- moned. Then to Lewis' boarding house, and up the stairs, to his little room. Graves deposited Hepburn upon the bed and sent his companion for a doctor. Meanwhile, he attempted to ease his friend by sitting at his bedside and patting his hand. Suddenly the sunken eyes opened and the shrivelled lips began to move. Hepburn was trying to talk. He spoke falteringly, gasping and choking for air. 'Al am dying, Henry- Nonsensel Don't say things like that! interrupted his friend in distress. You'll get over this. You must! Hepburn seemed to gather the last shreds of his strength. A'Why so? What have l got to live for? Who will grieve? What work will be undone? He began to tremble and shake and mumble under the covers. Henry's face, as he sat near his friend, wrinkled with lines of sympathy through its mask of rough grease and paint. As he stared at Lewis, he began to realize more completely the pathos of that futile life. Now Hepburn's head attracted his attention. How old and withered it looked in the flickering candle-light that danced and cast dancing shadows upon the dusty walls. The few grey hairs served poorly indeed to hide the great bony skull underneath. The eyes were deeply sunken. The whitish lips parted to expose yellow teeth in the involuntary grin of a death's head! Now the dying man spoke again, intent upon some last expression of desire before all desire and life should fade from him. Henry, listen to me. Do what you will with my small properties. They are worthless. But- Here his eyes gleamed with excitement- Take this- His finger pointed, like a lean, emaciated claw, toward his own damp skull- Take this-make it my part-fin-Hamlet! thirty

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Melody of Beauty by Phyllis Schwartz I WALK slowly to the top of the hill, and pause. It will never do to walk on, with this heaven of motionless beauty before me. All the majestic grandeur awaiting the touch of God's fingers, he had poured into this simple scene. Surely the sloping green of these hills has been poured by the most delicate of I-lands. At my feet the grass is ankle-high. The delicate lavendar of clover brushes the soft yellow of tiny buttercups. A daisy whose stem I have bent, but not crushed with my foot, slowly raises its fringed head. A hurt child, it is, with reproach in every motion! I move a few steps, and my shadow falls upon it. The sun, warm on my back, is sinking lower in the heavens. The green of the hill opposite me gradually softens. Far, far below the river flows, like a silver girdle amidst folds of velvet, I half close my eyes and there at the bend of the river sit the Fates. They are lovely. Their long grey hair, wafted in the wind, trails the water. They are the end of life, as they are the end of the flow- ing streaml I close my eyes, then open them-to brush away the haziness. The willows at the end of the stream are mere shadows in the deepening twilight. The hill on which I stand shades the water. Only a broad ribbon of light bathes the slope beside me. The shadow creeps higher and higher, The sun is no longer warm on my back. Softly I turn and walk back across the grass. Beauty of God's making is at rest. Night Magic, majestic, encompassing night, Closing serenely the portals of day, Curtain the sun in her rosy array- Kindle the stars as they turn in their flight- Cradle the world in your comforting dark- Station the moon as your heavenly mark- Magic, majestic, encompassing night, Out of your darkness, reveal me the light, Bayla Vixman thirty-two