Newport News High School - Anchor Yearbook (Newport News, VA)

Page 22 text:

THE BOOKS (With Apologies to Poe) (Eatonia Dandridge, 1904) See the children with the books Lesson Books! So much work for weary scholars The future outlooks! How they study, study, study In the early hours of night While the girls are having fun — Yet our trouble’s just begun — Yet they go on with their delight, Making fuss, fuss, fuss, Everything a perfect muss, And we sit and study, study in the dark and dreary nooks, From the books, books, books, books, Books, books, books, O, the buying and the eyeing of the books. See the great Geometry books — And Botany books! What a lot of learning from their Pages look! In the troubled eye of child, While they run and romp as wild, Too much excited to speak, They can only shriek, shriek — As they hurriedly pass, For a kind kind consideration for their tenderness of age And a begging from their father, that dreaded sage, As he turns page, page, And his great increasing rage With his resolute endeavor — You shall sit now or never

Page 21 text:

THE BEACON 109 ties off a glib recitation. I get 0 — he gets 100 So goes the world, and I say, what’s its worth ? I appeal to you, old friend, who’ve never failed me in any- thing — what’s its worth after all, all these long hours I spent in pouring over books, which I might have spent in living. You say I have the satis- faction of knowing that I know more than Tom? But do I? What I’ve learned from books, which is second- hand, he’s been out in the world, and learned from men. I’ve yet to learn how to live, and he knows, and has lived. I sound bitter, don’t I ? Well, I’ll get over it, and it will be best forgot- ten. If I had it to do over again, what course should I take? I’d moderate on both. I’m one extreme, Tom’s the other, and the person that can strike a happy medium is the per- son that will make the best success of life. ECSTASY (A Poem by Victor Hugo, translated from orignal French as a regular Class Exercise) I am alone near the waves on a starry night, Not a cloud in the sky, all sails out of sight; My eyes in the distance from the world afar, While the woods, and the mountains and nature all In a confessed murmur seem loudly to call To the waves of the sea and each twinkling star. What say those infinite legions, those stars of gold? With their thousand harmonies, their voices bold, As their crowns of fire they seem to incline? What say those waves of blue that never can rest, As they curl the white foam high on their crest? “This is the Lord, the Lord, God Divine!” NANNIE CLEMENTS, ’06.

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THE BEACON 111 By the side if the bright-lighted gas. Oh, the books, books, books. Oh, the desks and big old hooks In the schoolroom! How the youngsters write and talk On the board with horrid chalk And waste a little time till noon. Yet the children fully know, They must fulfill the plans, And also the demands, Of the parents who make them go. They must study, study, study When they want to run, And study, study, study, for they’ve just begun. Oh, study from the books, books, books, Books! books, books, books; You must worry, but not hurry through the Books! “THE CLOUD” A cloud I saw all robed in white, Banked up, and pure as drifts of snow, All bordered round with silvery light — And idly it moved along and slow. The sun’s bright glare then faded away, And slowly the burning embers of day Reluctantly gave place to those That shed the delicate tints of rose. I went to rest to dream and hope That in the morning when I woke I’d see the cloud. Alas! Dismay! The wind had driven it away. So opportunities glide past, But, like the cloud, one’s not the last. NELSON C. OVERTON, ’10.