Oak Grove Coburn High School - Oak Leaves Yearbook (Vassalboro, ME)

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OAK LEAVES Just for myself, I like to think that one day Truth and Beauty were standing before the first mirror, disputing who was the fairer, until J ove, wearied of their quarrelling, hurled a thunderbolt which shattered the mirror with the images it held, and sent the brilliant fragments floating far and wide. Perhaps, when a poet captures a tiny bit of Beauty or of Truth in one of his poems, perhaps it is a particle of the shattered mirror. Each time anyone gives form to a beautiful thought or a bit of Truth, he is helping to gather the fragments and to restore the broken images. And it may be-I like to think so-that one day, when all the scattered pieces are found, Truth and Beauty shall stand before us, perfect and eternal. SEVEN BRAVE BOATS LOST THEIR LOVELY FIGUREHEADS BITTERSWEET AND BAYBERRY Gay bittersweet with baylberry, In gleaming copper bowledg A brilliancy and softness met In mellow beams of gold. One, flaunting red and yellow balls, With vivid freedom playsg The other closely holds each bunch Of greenish silvern grays. SUSAN CHANDLER, '34. 13

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OAK LEAVES In nature poems, the difference between modern and classic verse is as strong. The first four lines of James Russell Lowell's popular poem, To a Dandelion : Dear common fiower, that growest beside the way, Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold, First pledge of blithesome May, Which children pluck, and, full of pride, uphold,- are sufficient to show the contrast in Hilda Conkling's Dandelion : O little soldier with the golden helmet, What are you guarding on my lawn? You with your green gun And your yellow beard, Why do you stand so stiff ? There is only the grass to fight! The simplicity and directness in Hilda Conkling's poem are as attrac- tive and refreshing as the dandelion itself when it first shows gold in the springtime. The contrast is equally striking in other types of poetry. Crossing the Bar has been called the most nearly perfect poem, in poetic feeling and harmony of rhythm to thought, that has ever been written in the English language. The image lives for every reader, just as Tennyson con- ceived it: the beach with the sunset streaming over it, the long wash of the waves in the sandg the far-off tolling of bells, and the clear birth of the evening star. All is pictured in the rhythm of the lines as clearly as in the words. There is no discordant note. In Sara Teasdale's last book of verse we find a few fragile lines, different in form from Tennyson's but giving in delicate imagery the same thought, the soul reunited with the Infinite. All that was mortal shall be burned away, All that was mind shall have been put to sleep, Only the spirit shall awake to say What the deep says to the deep, But for an instant, for it too is fleeting- As on a field with new snow everywhere, Footprints of birds record a brief alighting In flight begun and ended in the air. No one can define poetry, it cannot be learned or taught, only felt. Many scholars and poets have tried to express what it has meant to them: one has said that a true poem is a gallery of picturesg another, a Greek poet, tells us that it is a speaking picture and that painting is mute poetryg nearly all of them agree that poetry is the language of great emotions and that it reflects or pictures life. 12

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OAK LEAVES A REVERIE There is a little whitewashed gate beneath a champak tree with its fragrant, creamy flowers calling me back again to the dear thatched bun- galow with its matted ceiling and broad verandas. The old well sweep is still there and the tulip tree with its yellow blossoms beyond the hedge where I used to pick orange berries. Out in the back yard a little brown goat is grazing under the cotton tree and beyond are the fields that have seen many a rollicking game of London Bridge or Drop the Handker- chief. Balak is dusting in the parlor and the piano is in the same old corner where it used to be. Even though its keys have an added mellowness yet they recall the simple tunes of Baa-Baa Black Sheep and Butterfly that I first learned to play. My eyes wander to the large bookcase by the door. Robin Hood is there, and Dr, Doolittle, and all my favorite books that bring back fond memories of childish desires to become a hero clad in green or a Maid Marion waiting for her lover. I turn to speak to Balak, who was always so jolly and kind, but the accents of a once familiar tongue stick in my throat and the Eastern language that was once so fluent now seems foreign. I gaze once more at the beautiful champak tree with its fragrant Howers before I close the little gate behind me and turn down the white road that leads to the West and the world of today. F. M., '34. SECURITY So late-one minute to midnight now- But throw another log on the dying fire! For you are to be my very own, The answer to all my heart's desire. The great hall clock strikes solemnlyg The air outside is sharp and coldg But we are safe by the firelight's cheer, While the leaping flames burn blue and gold. MARY TAYLOR, '34. 14