Livermore High School - El Vaquero Yearbook (Livermore, CA)

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GREEN 69 GOLD Now, he would go to the terraced or sunken gardens and write poetry or dream. But I was mistaken. He went into the old fashioned garden. Flowering trees entwined their branches about each other and formed such a nei- work of color that only occasionally could the evening sky be seen. Many fountains played an accompaniment to the song of the Evening Bird. The Boy sat upon a wood- land bench. I had noticed that under his arm he carried an oblong black box. He opened the box and took out a violin. He walked to a sheltered nook. A lattice had been built to form a large semi-circle. Covering the lattice were pink and blue flowers. In the center of this bower was a fountain whose waters fell over rocks that led to the sunken garden. lt was beside this fountain that the Boy began to play. The music he played made the Evening Bird cease his song and even the waters of the fountain fell more softly. This was what the music told me. The Boys mother was a Princess, his father was a shepherd. Wlieia the shepherd married the Princess he was very happy, but oh, how he longed for the hills and the sheep. But now he was Prince and must live in the Black Marble Palace. After many years the Prince died of lonesomeness and the Princess soon followed him. Now they were living happily in the hills of Paradise. But their little Boy was living alone in the palace, and he, like his father, wanted the hills. The Boy had many sheep, He would dress himself like a shepherd and with his great dog would watch them all day. In two weeks he would become King and never more would he be able to watch his sheep on the green, greern hills under the blue, blue sky. No wonder he was sad. The music stoppedg the Boy went back to the Black Marble Palace. Two weeks passed. There was a great feast in the Black Palace. The Boy was crowned King. He sat on a throne brighter than the sun. The emeralds and rubies with which it was studded, sent out rays that vied with the brightest rainbow. All about the King was beauty and wealth-fair maidenhood, young knights, rich velvets and glittering jewels. A troop of servants waited behind the Kings throne to serxe his every wish. There was song and drinking and eating. Yet all this merrymaking and splendor could not efface the sadness and longing in the young Kings face. The years passed. The boy was an aged King. He spent all his leisure time in the high tower atop of the Black Marble Palace. From here he could see all the hills in the world. He saw the white sheep grazing on the green hillsg he saw the carefree Shepherd Boy lead the sheep to the flower-bordered pondg he saw the thatched cottage of Corydon and Thyrsis Hbetwixt two aged oaksug he saw his own life in the Black Palace. The people of the Court wondered why he shut himself up in the tower and why he had so much sheep-wool brought to him and why he employed the worlds most renowned chemists to work with him. One day the King died. They laid him in a white marble coffin and put him in .1 great room whose walls were covered with black velvet. After the world had paid him homage, they placed his white marble cotlin in a black marble vault that was built in the flowery bower where he had played so many years before, The King was soon forgotten. But the fairest of the fair maidens, who had tried to make him smile on the day of his coronation, did not forget him. She went to find consolation in the tower where he had spent so much of his time. Here she found a T291

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GREEN 6 Goto LITERARY THE sEcReT or A PERSIAN RUG The room I entered was a small palace of luxuriousness. There were deep cush- ioned chairs, a grande piano, an old violin, a radio cabinet, an orthophonic victrola, a glowing flre was in the great fireplace, on both sides of which was a bookcase filled with leather-bound books. Blue velvet drapes hung gracefully from the eight wide windows. On the walls were exquisite oil paintings. The dim light of many shaded lamps and the rosy glow of the hreplace completed the picture. What impressed me most was the Persian rug on the floor. Various shades of blue, it was with intricate floral designs. 'Twas a fantastic rug. What at flrst appeared to be gorgeously colored flowers. on close examination, took many shapes and forms. If you gazed upon a certain design intently, you could trace human features-a pair of searching eyes, a nose, a mouth-but never could you flnd the entire face. Some- times you could almost complete what you thought would be a profile when suddenly your eye shifted and the face was lost. Again, when looking at a large group of flowers, you could see a garden-the blue sky, a fountain, rose covered lattices, benches. Quickly all this would vanish and in its place were hills and sheep. Try as you might, you would never see the same picture twice. Sometimes the blue sky was gray, or the flowers grew in profusion instead of on a lattice, or the fountain and bench were missing. The hills were different. Often they were rugged and bleak with no sheep upon them or they might be low plains covered with wild flowers. Strange this rug and beautiful. Well, there were stranger things in this world than this rug. I took a book from the bookcase, drew a comfortable chair before the fireplace, and prepared to spend an hour reading. But I couldn't read. My mind kept wandering to the Persian rug under my feet. Why could I see those fair gardens, those green and gray hills, those mysterious faces. Was it mere fancy or were they actually there? Thus wandering, I sat looking into the fireplace as if I would flnd an answer there. And here I saw, rather than heard, the tale of the Persian rug. Green, green hills that seemed to touch the blue, blue sky, rose before me. On their slopes, white sheep grazed. When they were tired of the hills, the sheep ran down into a tiny valley where a brook wound its way into a flower-bordered pond. Here the sheep drank and ran races along the pond. Then up into the hills they ran and played until sunset when a young boy and a great dog came to drive them home. I-le was a handsome lad, this young shepherd. But was he a shepherd? His fair skin and flne hands seemed at variance with the life of a shepherd. I followed the young boy. I-Ie did not go home to a thatched cottage, he went to a Black Marble palace! What a strange home for a shepherd boy to live in. The Black Marble palace was surrounded by gardensAsunken gardens, terraced gardens, old fashioned gardens. Directly in front of the palace was a great extent of lawn fashioned in queer shapes-stars, a full, a quarter and a half moon. The shepherd boy came down the Black Marble steps. I-Iow different he looked. Gone was the shepherds simple garb and in its place were the purple velvets and sables of a king. Oh. but what a look was in his eyesl That boy was far from happy. I23l

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GREEN 6 Goto magnificent Persian rug. As she looked at the intricate floral designs, she seemed to see shadowy hills and gardens and mysterious faces. She was astonished. Very carefully she rolled the rug and took it home. There she hung it in her own boudoir. Every day at the time when shepherds came home she was lonesome and wished the King were living. It was then she found consolation in gazing at the strange tug. The first few weeks she had it, it was merely a myriad of intricate designs wrought in riotous colors. Then, one day when her heart was especially aching and het soul was especially weary, she slowly climbed the stairs to her boudoir. But today she was sure she would find no usurcease of sorrow in the rug. From the window, she sor- rowfully looked at the setting sun. Her sun had set forever when the King had died, it had left no afterglow. Then she turned to the rug. How long she gazed upon it, no one can ever tell, but vaguely she traced a sad face. Then she saw the face was in a Hower-covered arbor. That was all. Again and again, when heaitsick, she found peace in the fantastic rug. Wlien she was happy, the faces in the tug seemed to smile and the flowers to nod. When she was sad, the flowers were drooping and withered and the faces seemed to slowly shake their heads as if they tried to tell her not to grieve. She grew to love the rug. And as the years passed by, she found in it all the beauty, all the poignant longing of the man she loved. And she was happy. Her sun was shut away in the Wlaite Marble Coffin in the Black Marble Sepulcher of the King, but the King had left behind him his rug-her afterglow. With a start, I jumped out of my comfortable chair. How cold I was. Oh, no won' deixl The glowing logs in the fireplace were gray ashes. THELMA M, FERRARIO, '28 RAINDROPS After a day of soggy gray clouds That blotted the blue from the sky, After the sun has gone over the rim And the Specter of Night presses nigh, Then come the raindrops, children of clouds, Beating with soft stealthy tread, Raindrops that sing like the ttill of a bird, Sing after sunset has fled. LLOYD KVM. Biarsms, '28 f 50 1