Oakwood Collegiate Institute - Oracle Yearbook (Toronto Ontario, Canada)

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THE SAVAGE AND THE EARTH A savage roamed The untamed plains and hills, A slave to Nature ' s whim. Beneath his feet An undiscovered world Stored riches For the day that he would call. Yet still he roamed, His savage hunger driving him To pass in frantic search The endless sources of his pleasure Hidden by the mind ' s bent corridor. And yet he learned That Fire burned, That Seed would grow, That Winds would blow, — But knew not why. He learned but could not understand. So terror seized his mind. He raised to his Enigmas Images of faith. To question not, but rather to proclaim His own base impotence before Their great Mysterious Force . . . And so again the savage trod The paths of Thoughtlessness. But now a strange call sounded in the mind. The corridor invited ' round its bend. The candle flickered through a mystic dark. The savage stepped to light. And then, before his reasoning The secrets fell. The pounding of his mind On door on door of mystery Destroyed the confines of behef, And now He ran. He roams no more. And to the glory of His mind The towering cities rise. The earth concedes the victory Of element ' gainst element And crushes ' neath His heel. His gathering power sweeps ahead From world to world, proud triumph flies Before Him. Slavery ' s dead. Smashed before the justice of His rise. Man. RODIN John Angel THE ANSWER Winter comes at last, to stay — The white ash of summer. The miracle does cease; Rebirth is not for ever; And the beautious green Does for one final season Flash red and gold and die. Will not blood relieve parched earth? Does no tear fall but freezes? And does each world and thus, A piteous moan to fall Dying in the cold? If flowers grow from seeds. If ever a child is born, If grass grows on graves, If stars shine at night, If spring has come but once, Then God is. — Warren Bourgeois 108

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MAN IN THE 6TH DECADE OF THE 20TH CENTURY Russel A. Steventon THE QUALITY OF MERCY S STRAINED A handful of brave reporters huddled around the observation window to witness the gruesome spectacle and convey it to the public. Strapped to his nemesis — the electric chair, sat a young man awaiting the inevitable. The observers re- marked on his resolute expression, like that of the Roman gladiators as they paid tribute to their emperor in the words Nos morituri te salutam- us . He too, was about to die. His eyes had lost their lustre, and were directed towards the huge glaring lights, which hung like elixers of life above him. His nose, once a tower of strength and determination, now stood mean- ingless above a motley complexion. Tiny beads of sweat danced in a macabre fashion on his fore- head, but an aimless movement of the arm, swept them into oblivion. His parched dry lips caressed each other in a final farewell. Now all eyes were on his hands — his ever-twisting, ever-turning hands that, after a final gasp of agony, were taut. Thus a man, like the beads of sweat before him, was swept into the dark shadows of obUvion. — Bernard Marlow THE VICTORY The crowds moving to the starting hne stirred a pall of dust which hung over the track. Beads of sweat on the foreheads of the runners were as much due to the waiting as to the muggy at- mosphere. His nostrils were irritated by the motionless dust; each fibre of his body tightened and every pore was persecuted by sweat. Time, like the dust, hung motionless in the air. The pall stirred as at a signal. The metallic voice cut the silence, On your marks ... For a few ete rnal seconds every muscle strained for the sound. With a crash the starting pistol ' s re- port descended on his mind like a curtain of steel. His taut muscles, freed from the yoke of inaction, now propelled him furiously. Thought would have been an intruder in his mind from which every spark of energy was drained to feed the screaming muscles. His senses, his instincts, the taste and fear of an impossible victory, drove him on like an emerald spearpoint. Thus, by infinitesimal degrees, he drew free of the fleeting shadows who taunted him with their presence. All but one fell back — one, recorded only by the dim light in the corner of his eye, only by the whispered sounds of its passing through that chaos. His own breath was a gale, the dust that had irritated now made lungs scream for mercy and the sweat was now a bUnding tormentor. And onward before the green flame. Suddenly the goal flashed before him with a crystal brightness, the white horizontal line gleam- ing in the distance. Dimly beside him he sensed the shadow. He leapt before the flame which forced the supreme agony from his physical be- ing. The goal ahead, the shadow fleeting with him, the flame; all combined in the final flash of ecstatic misery. The pure white tape snapped be- fore him and darkness fell. The sobs which racked his body lessened. Dis- tantly the voice of cold steel said, upsetting yourself again? The flame was gone and his mind returned. Bitterness and disgust over- whelmed him as he gazed at the sterile, stuffy room; the harsh whiteness of the nurse ' s uniform, and the emerald twinkle of his tears on the chrome of his invalid ' s wheelchair. Warren Bourgeois 110