Latin School of Chicago - Sigillum Yearbook (Chicago, IL)

Page 49 text:

lost Mementns In A Glass Case ARTHUR CUMMINGS Arthur Cummings, '36, Yale ,4O, a recent outstanding student Dust unblown and finely molded masks Are under glass like pauses in the flight Of time and dark and Sun, that gold-pronged loom That spins a cage of light around the World. I look upon the careful dome of glass So like a bubble blown, absorbing all Reflections of today Within the top. And dust in thin and like a templed eyelid, Rendering a songless mystery Upon the case and thus upon my lips. Cerebral dreams remind me of that lady Strangely not forgotten nor remembered,- Dreams like parchment stretched upon a globe Distorted Qaccidentally, it seemsj. With fading breath I feel the sullen fragrance Of the silk-hung air as echoing, A hallowed but nought-soothing anodyne. And faintly ballet-dancers' Whorls of white Revolve in chinese pattern, 'cellos sing So faintly that the smoke-gold light of day Seems not another sense-perception,--no, But rather sound cornmingled with that clean Abstraction of tree-shadows on the blinds. We live and are not hurt for this, the living, Yet we sigh for something lost to night Unrealized in its eternity. And so We cherish all poetic baubles Like those charms and bright-brocaded slippers. Have you age? The golden century-clock Would only see the clouds and sightless suns, And neither vaulted fields not steepled orchards Would respond in acquiescence now. How can you live? Nothing to say have I, Twice-questioned, nor to tell my soul, but this,

Page 48 text:

T h r e e P 0 e m s STEPHEN KEELER Stephen Keeler, ex-'33, Yale '38, a more recent student at Latin, who plans to do graduate work at Yale, studying Latin. The clarity of crisp December night Made heaven with each singing star hang close To me. The crescent moon now just in sight Sank fast behind the ridge Where blackened rows Of firs saw-tooth the fine horizon's line. Long Walls of stone curved over each small round Of Whitely-sheeted earth. Their sharp design No longer kept the field from fallow ground, But as they slid across the crusted snow They seem meridians of some rare sphere That held me chained and Would not let me go From where each crystal second seemed a year. With one shrill scream I broke my bonds and ran Out of my icy goal to Warmth and man. Fkvkbk The infinite majesty of the fall Has settled in the hills. Strong-minded be Or else look as a child to see it all With sanity. The beauty of each tree So finely set apart by slanting rays Of evening light burns in my soul. The air Is clear and merciless, and summer's haze No longer blunts those lines. The rare, The steel sharp lines of fall, the line That separates the sea and sky, the curves Of barren hills, the village spire with fine And classic cruelty lay bare my nerves, Come quickly snow and ease my pain Quench flame, blur line, O keep me sane. Pkvkik This spring is so much like the fall, The sky is grey and so's the sea. It does not seem like spring at all, This spring is so much like the fall. The heavy clouds hang like a pall On redly budding maple tree. This spring is too much like the fall When skies are grey and grey the sea.

Page 50 text:

SIGILLUM Against what fate concedes without my will. 4'Yes, I, intense on chaste and heartborn wings, Shall seek the words of my escape through night. O tiny god, the god of this lean town, Create my ecstacy: unshuttered Suns! CThe night is sad, in spheres of ashen ringsj But thou art dead, the 'cello surely sings. Song at the Well I Against the painted hill The copper beech is like you when Deep-planted near the mill Pond through the earth, it long resists The winds and rains, as men Are rooted, sun-strong lists Held in by ropes, full hearts pulsating, Caged by nightingales, But caught in nothing solid, hating All attenuated chains, All thin and ghostly bands. II The earthly impulse binds the field, And hard wrists growing, Wild, enchanted, yield Earth-weakness, slowing All the tenuated shadows of a dream. Not this is sad, O you who bring uplifting force. I tell You listening in quiet-bruited sorrow that the well Of misfortune here lies, Nor but alone in unreaped grain Nor in the closed-heart rain, Nor in west-blown and dust-flaked winds That cringe away with hate, With hot lists past retreating, Effortless because of arms and minds above, Not there but in our deafness to unspoken things. I say: with love Of heaven, the sainted well will be all full, And liquid-cool, Like moons on sun-hurt roofs.