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

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OAK LEAVES I would cherish in my heart The Old Year's gifts- Beauty, love, and wisdom- Won from loneliness and pain. New Year, I do not ask of you That you bring me happinessg Only that you bring the gift of life- I would meet life gladly, Taking what is given Of Sorrow and of pain, Nor asking more of joy Than is granted unto me. Only this I do ask of life:- That I may ,learn to weave its gifts- Into a pattern of song. ETHEL WENTWORTH, '38. GIVING To th-e others I have given of myself, My gaiety, my courage, and my strength, And a measure of my love. With the others I have learned to laugh and Weep, To sorrow with their sorrows and their tearsg To rejoice with all their joys. But the others never kn-ew my deepest heart, I could not give its wholeness unto them, And a part of it went free. I have kept a part untouched by human love, It waits for him to Whom someday I'll kneel, And humbly give my all. ANON., '38, ,1ll.1.- BROADWAY ABOVE ALL NATIONS IS HUMANITY Upper Fifth Avenue in her decaying hauteurg midtown Fifth Avenue with her Swank, polished glittering shops and storesg Riverside Drive in her passing grandeurg Park Avenue in her newly-found prominenceg they are all cold, unfeeling,-snobs. But Broadway, brazen and uncouth, with Warmth and laughter, tears 15

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OAK LEAVES Where war's defaming blight no scars shall etch, Where pure religion undefiled is throned, Where faith is never smirched nor justice scorned. In that land all may find the cherished Grail Because each heart doth keep a holy tryst With the all-seeing Comrade who can guide And guard us through the labyrinthian Ways Of complex living, Pilot-Master-King. These earnest words she ponders in h-er heart She sees the vision clear, that chalice pure Which led Sir Galahad in days of yore To seek high quest in struggle, challenge, strife. Return, Jeanne d'Arc, O make us strong again! And give us courage, strength, and thy great faith! O TO BE AT OAK GROVE NOW THAT SPRING IS THERE! NEW YEAR'S EVE Old year, I would not lose an hour of youg Each moment I would hold close to my heart, The moments of beauty and of love, And the moments of growing wisdom. I would not lose a mornent's pain or fear, Or loneliness, that gives me song. 12

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OAK LEAVES and sentiment, beneath her bitter cyncinism, is real- ugly, and yet beautiful. Carefree and eager-she embraces allg on her stages and screens- mighty dramas, mediocre plays, flop-quick musicals, tawdlry burlesques. But behind the scenes, beyond' the tinsel and gauze and glitter. lies the greatest play of all,-heart-wrenching human drama, the painful climb, and the swift slip downward. Broadway is thronged with her people-old-timers selling pencils on street corners: new-comers gazing wide-eyed up the street that is their hopeg hardened troupers swinging confidently along in the knowledge of their success. But see! It is growing dark. The famous lights of the Great White Way are beginning to glitter. From the high. dark island of a distant roof, all that can be seen of Broadway is the faint aura of redf light that hangs over her through the night. She seems to be sleeping and at peace, but the ceaseless murmur of her traffic is an insistent reminder of the life's blood that surges and throbs through the Heart of a great city. Blue dust of evening over my city Over the ocean of roofs and the tall towers Where the window-lights myrad and myrads Bloom from the walls like climbing fiowersf' -Sarah Teasdale PHYLLIS WEBB, '40. 1.- 1ll PINE AND STAR Against the sky of night A pine tree stands, Strong and sure and beautiful And nestling in its arms Is one small lonely star. Oh! be to me the pine tree For I, too, am A small, lonely star. ETHEL WENTWORTH, '8. 14