Mary Baldwin College - Bluestocking Yearbook (Staunton, VA)

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12 llie Augusta Seminary Amiiial. And out of the dim past a remembrance comes to him of a picture painted in the happy days of youth, In the hall there hangs a painting — Amy ' s arms about my neck — Happy children a sunbeam sitting on the ribs of wreck. Lady Clara Vere de Vere is a type of the modern society girl, we may find her in the crowded ball room in winter, or upon the grassy tennis court in summer, a mere butterfly basking in the smiles of her admirers. Who trembles her fan in a sweetness dumb, As her thoughts were beyond recalling, With a glance for one and a glance for some, From her eye-lids rising and falling, Speaks common words with a blushful air, Hears told words unreproving, She lures her victims on by the witchery of her bright eyes and the coquetry of her manner, valuing the love of a true heart as she would some new song, pleasing until its place is filled by another, newer and more charming. And many other pictures are equally as fine, such as that of rare, pale Margaret, of faintly smiling Adeline, or of Maud concerning whom the poet says. Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls. Come hither, the dances are done, ■ In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls. Queen lily and rose in one ; Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls, To the flo wers, and be their sun. - - % She is coming, my own, my sweet ; Were it ever so airy a tread, My heart would hear her and beat, Were it earth in an earthy bed ; My dust would hear her and beat. Had T lain for a century dead ; Would start and tremble under her feet, And blossom in purple and red. All of these are very delicately and tenderly sketched, form- ing in themselves a gallery worthy of any great artist of the Italian school, a gallery which not only pleases us as we wander through it in youth, but which remains throughout life a pleasant memory, its pictures rising unbidden before our eyes as we sit alone in the twilight of many a summer day. Mary McCulloch.

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The Aiii iista Seminary Annual. 11 that passionate outburst of sorrow, love and despair at his part- ing from her in the holy house at Almesbury touched some sleeijing chord within her heart, and awakened her love. What higher tribute could be paid to her beauty than is expressed in these lines. But how to take last leave of all I loved ? O golden hair, with which I used to play, Not knowing! O imperial moulded form, And beauty such as never woman wore Until it came a Kingdom ' s curse with thee. Let us wander from this epic and speak of the women de- scribed in his other peoms ; of the child-Uke witchery of fair Lilian, who clasps her tiny hands above her, So innocent-arch, so cunning-simple From beneath her gather ' d wimple Glancing with black-beaded eyes, Till the lightning laughters dimple The baby-roses in her cheeks Then away she flies. Or we might fix our attention on that vale of Ida lovelier than all the valleys of Ionian hills. whither came at noon the once beautiful CEnone, mourning the faithlessness of that perfidious, yet handsome shepherd, Prince Paris, and breathing out her sad history to Mother Ida in word of deepest despair. In many of his poems the Laureate has spoken of the rapture of love, but its peace and pure contentment are best given in the Miller ' s Daughter, Goethe ' s, Schiller ' s, Burns ' lovers speak of moments of delight, this lover speaks of the peace that has been the atmosphere of his life for many years. Look thro ' mine eyes with thine true wife, Round my true heart tkine arms entvdne ; My other dearer life in life, Look thro ' my very soul with thine. The timid, gende Amy is one of the daintiest of Tennyson ' s creations. She excites such a sensation of pleasure as we feel ' ' in seeing a delicately tinted, quaindy shaped china cup, or in finding a curiously veined, richly flushed shell on the sea shore ' As the heart-broken old wanderer paces up and down the sandy tracts lying before the stately pile of Locksley Hall, his mind strays back to the love of his boy-hood, Amy loved me, Amy failed me, Amy was a timid child.

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The Augusta Seminary Annual. 13 Sunrise and Sunset in the Highlands. F AlyL the poets who have taken Nature as their theme, not one has ever surpassed Sir Walter Scott. As we turn the pages of the great Scottish bard, we often find ourselves wondering what it is that makes his word-pictures of natural scenery appeal so strongly to our imagination, and the chief rea- son seems to be, that he loved Nature so dearly, that he came so truly near Nature ' s heart, that sjie unfolded for him her great, golden heart, and revealed herself to him in all her purity and beauty. And his love for her was mingled with something that amounted almost to adoration; he considered it desecration to de- file the temple of this goddess with his own joys and sorrows. To him, even in his saddest moments, the massive mountains, with their crowns of purest snow, raised their heads as proudly to the skies as if his own heart were not bowed down with grief and pain; the brooks flowed as gaily, as merrily along, as if the fount- ains of his love and happiness were not frozen and still; and soon, under their gladdening influence, his evil moods vanished, and he took pleasure anew in the songs of the birds and in the bud- ding of the flowers. It is no wonder, then, that this, the noblest passion of Scott ' s soul, should show itself so I ' requently in his writings, and that his descriptions of the scenery in his beloved home-land, Scotland, should be more admired than anything else in his poems. The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Marmion, and the Lady of the Lake, are all filled with these glowing word-pictures, but one, which has always been considered especially beautiful, is the description of a sunset scene in the Trosachs. Let us imagine ourselves, now, on the lofty summit of Ben An, and view, with our poet ' s eyes, this magnificent panorama. Far below us roll the waters of Loch Katrine, now one burnished sheet of living gold, as they are touched by the Midas-like fing. er of the dying sun. Toward the south rises huge Ben Venue, crowned by these same magic fingers with a halo of encircling light, while nestled at its base lie massive forests stretching away to soft vales and undulating meadows in the distance. As we turn in another direction, our eyes fall on the dark glens and ra-