Iowa State University - Bomb Yearbook (Ames, IA)

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melody in feathers, poised like a spirit, with emotion teeming from every feathered tip and forming a halo of sweet sounds. Flying seemed to add to the force of his song. Iask no chaster embodiment for new spirits of heaven coming to my bed window than this unforget- able poem, U That God Endowed With Wings. A filled capacity is magnitude. By this standard that bird was the largest I ever knew. He evidently had a strong home attachment for he was always late in getting back in the spring and must have tarried in his former nesting with a similar reluctance that kept him from leaving my window in the closing season. It was an easier, happier day that marked his return each spring time. There are rare days in nature as there are in one's life. These are of winter and sum- mer. One such day when the snow was deep and fast falling, the storm and the air were full of lullabys that soothed the spirit and made the snow the downiest of beds for one in a great coat of friendly clothure. In a grove that day were gathered thousands of birds upon tree tops akin that seemed to have caught these hints of the air and were singing in the storm for hours. The snow was falling most plentifully. It was a melting spectacle of ears with closed eyes to lie under these trees encircled by snow and covered over white by the falling elements, to listen to their indescribable carols. All food to them of earth and sky seemed snowed under and wintered over. Human ingenuity could not fortell their next meal. Some Scripture in bird lore regarding the fall of a single sparrow seemed to fortify their spirits and thrill their songs. There has an endless variety of notes, a marvelous blending of voices and a matchless inspiriting of song. They will sing in my life forever. When a man dies how sweet it would be to have birds singing all about him and how apt for some choice friend to read from Browning, I go to prove my soul! I see my way as birds their trackless way, I shall arrive! what time, what circuit first, I ask notg but unless God send his hail Or blinding fireballs, sleet or stiHing snow, In some time, his good time, I shall arrive: He guides me and the bird. In his good time! . 'v-fxrw'v -wi-1-z-C: fl, - -5 3:35, ,,,-. f ' 23

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The singer sang all the long stanzas of the poem and they each seemed too short. Resolution camegro wing out of the innermost depth of the being with the concluding stanzas: H Mother, dear mother, the years have been long Since I last listened your lullaby song: Sing, then, and unto my soul it shall seem lVIanhood's years have been only a dream. Clasped to your heart in a loving embrace, With your light lashes just sweeping your face, Never hereafter to wake or to weep- Rock me to sleep, mother-rock me to sleep l This song is all the man heard that day. He was hidden in the depth of himself. -He mused on the line of the old gray poet- There is nothing greater in the world than to be the mother of men. More than creed or church, religion or philosophy is a mother soul like that in the destiny of a being. It is an inspired scripture without exposure to verbal inaccuracy. It begetsa faith in things high and eternal in both worlds. For a few individuals it surpasses precept, doctrine and congress of mothers. The spirit of genuine motherhood is fundamental to all Christian progress, civilization and eternal life. Though one cannot be a child again, yet the spirit of such motherhood is perpetual benediction dispensing its beneficences upon one's head ceaselessly. It sings lullabys in the evening time. It says, H I am here in the wakeful hours of the night. It enhances Christmas joys and the greetings of New Years. Genuine motherhood is one unending New Year's day, 1 1 se joy, inspiration and resolution multiply the real things of a man's being beyond compute and compare. it SOME BIRDS I HAVE KNOWN. SOME birds like a few men leave an immortal impression upon us. We do not need to clothe a bird with human faculties to make it interesting. Instinctive intelligence and goodness condition a royal individuality though not a personality. In acquaintanceship with birds, as with our own kind, two are a multitude, although for grandeur or expression of a hal- lelujah chorus a crowd is imperative. Under my bed window in the years that at have gone like the flowers, I knew a house Wren of unusual brilliancy. He presided over the nesting in a cozy nook aside the window sill, His mother must have called him a welcome child. He came into the world singing and never tired of the habit. When opens a day more hallowedly than the song of a bird thrust down into your slumbers? I am indebted beyond repay to this loyal attendant for several hundred new-born days and unique visions. Sometimes the soul seems to leave the body, like a mother her babe cuddled down in abandoned slumber, while it makes a useful journey to other spheres of love, and the song of the bird arouses the body before the soul's full return, and they come into the new day singing together with the morning. This wren had only a few notes but he knew them so well and sang them so soul- fully that they were always free of sameness. Things well done never grow old nor tiresome. Robert Browning got his idea of H Pippa Passes by meeting a spry' maiden coming singing along the forest path, and in his poem immortal sent her singing through the streets under the windows forever. This friend of mine in feathers had his paths through the air and the trees anear the house. Some instinctive compass known to God and the birds took him unerringly to the tops of a great lilac cluster around through the evergreens, back to the window sill, flinging music all about him. It was a delight supreme to see him coming, a ' 22

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Board of Trustees OFFICERS OF THE BOARD HON. J. B. HUNGERFORD, CARROLL - - CHAIRMAN HERMAN KNAPP, AIvIEs TREASURER EDGAR WILLIAM STANTON, AMES - - SECRETARY W. A. HELSELL. ODEBOLT FINANCIAL SECRETARY JOHN FRANKLIN CAVELL, AMES - STEWARD MEMBERS OF THE BOARD EX'OFFICIO-HON. ALBERT B. CUMMINS, GOVERNOR OF IowA EX-OFFICID-HON. R. C. BARRETT, SUPERINTENDENT UF P FIRST DISTRICT-HON. S. H. WATKINS, LIBERTYVILLE SECOND DISTRICT-HON. C. L. BARCLAY, WEST LIBERTY THIRD DISTRICT'-HON. E. A. ALEXANDER, CLARION FOURTH DISTRICT-HON. C. L. GABRILSEN, New HAMPTON FIFTH DIsTRIcT-HON. W. R. MONINGER, GALVIN - SIXTH DISTRICT-HON. W. O. MCELROY, NEWTON SEVENTH DISTRICT-HON. W. K. BOARDMAN, NEVADA EIGHTH DISTRICT-HON. W. B. PENICK, CHARITON - NINTH DISTRICT-HON. JAMES H. WILSON, ADAIR TENTH DISTRICT-HON. J. B. HUNGERFORD, CARROLL ELEVENTH DISTRICT-HON. W. J. DIXON, SAC CITY 24 UBLIC INSTRUCTION Term Expires 1904 1904 1908 1904 1906 1908 1906 1904 1908 1906 1906