Reed College - Griffin Yearbook (Portland, OR)

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, r a H13 GRIPF'I g3. Tobe wream-TA Wantasy This is no mansion newly-raisecl, this Palace of Dreams; for unnumbered years passed slowly in its building. Fathomless seas have beat against its high cliffs, and unknown centuries have worn to grayness its dim outlines. Dark it stands above the endless ocean, high against more endless skies. Far above the gulls pass and repass in their flight toward vanishing horizons, and far below the breakers roll against the age-old crags. There stands the lVIansion of Dreams. Few men know it is there, and those few have forgotten, for it was built before their day. To them it is but a legend once-told, and now no longer remembered. Here you can be alone; alone, with only the slow-moving sea gulls above, and far, far below, the sound of the measureless ocean. Around it are great gardens, filled with strange flowers from across the seas. Here are orchids, patterned with orange and black; moccasin-slippers with fiery, scarlet tongues, and here and there poison arrow-Howers from tropical forests. Labyrinthean paths lead between trees which sway above the flowers and speak in cleathlike' whispers of things which were but now have ceased to be. Deep pools where spotted lilies move in rythm with the murmuring above them, lie, half-hidden in the darkness. No birds frequent these lonely and deserted gardens, and only the winds breathe to them tales of lands from whence they came. And they, listening, sigh and sigh again, and are forever silent. Over all is a strangeness and a brooding quiet, the solitude of seas and boundless skies. Inside the great doors, open ever to the breeze and the murmurs of hushed . gardens, are strange rooms, filled with matchless treasures of no age and of no time. Long shadows from corners which have no beginning and no end, darken Hoors covered with rich rugs woven in colors, and marked with queer devices. There are told in their warps, tales of far-distant lands; caravans freightecl with priceless treasures, perishing under desert suns while oceans of sand sweep over them; legends of love and death in the heart of a land where only the stars are wise. and men are as senseless fools; tales of jade, and gold, and bronze; of incense burn- ing in carven temples; tales of forests of teak, of jewels less beautiful than maidens who sway to music but half-heard. All these are there on the floor in colors which are as a fragrance, and matchless beauty. Strange tapestries are hung on panelled walls from low ceilings framed in dark beamsetapestries whose working was the life time of slaves of their masters. There, too, are chairs carved in weird, fantastic shapes, bent to fit the sitter; tables inlaid with ivory, and one of blackest ebony with mother-of-pearl from bottomless caverns of the sea tinted in rose and Opales- cent hues. ln far corners are seen great chests half-opened and filled with richest fabricsasilks filmy as the foam of the sea, and more transparent; garments worked with rare jewels in dreamlike shapes, and wrought in curious designs; mantles broidered with precious metals in finest workmanship; jewels for dusky hair, and bracelets of silver set with jade for ankles white as milk; girdles of gold in- wrought with rubies, and here and there glimpses of a sandal for a foot of rosy '74

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have beat'WW if i. ll W Skies. mm, and la! l W0 of l, WWWM$ 0 lOnger r W 3 gulls above,: 1' x ige flowers fmf Ckmmw: iW-flowers from g wwmmm memg the murmuring l: immma BMmeg erww admm.; eze and the W reasuresolmllf ming and MW rked Wllll WW? wmeW of sand , Q J, EM, 192 7?: His GRIFF'I W; beauty. Near the doors, weapons of flashing steel catch the last rays of light and cast their gleams upon the polished floors. Stran e leo days of battle, and great works now long forgotten. gOvetfglcllsisthtehye $653161? 0; many ages, and in the shadows where no sunbeam lurked, mysterious murmir' 0 tell tales of other dayse-how there had been a mighty ruler fled from a 1nlgdS which loved him little to live here forever with a one who loved him well' stir:0r tales ofher whom he brought with him, a maiden palely fair whose duslt ' loZEe were tw1ned With palest lilies ; of how she strayed, forever silent thru these yendles: rooms and spoke no word; with feet white as the lilies in her hair the floatinor thinness of her gown blown free from limbs as soft as sleep; a maiden rnore beautifuti than the first star of evening when the heavens are dark. They told how this mighty ruler lived alone with his star of the heavens; how they spoke not but lived in love and strangest silentness; how the long days found them deep in the gardens where the flowers bent to kiss the feet which brushed them passing and the wind murmured to the trees of love which knows no end; and how in the evenin the maiden danced in the shadows for him who loved her; how her limbs showeg pale thrti their garments as she moved in slow measures and the lilies fell from her hair to lie forgotten on the moon-bearned floor; how they slept in the darkness w1th limbs closepressed on cushions soft and silken. Some say they never died but live still in the dark corners of the endless rooms, or roam without in the gardens where the flowers whisper to the winds. And some say they were but a dream, and the palace but a dream; that life too, is but a dream which has no ending, and that we who live but dream we live, and know not that ltis all a dream; that these two shall live forever in their mansion of dreams with the gulls far, far above, and far below the beating Sea against the giant crags. -M. j. N. DOSQOG WTO A BUTTERFLY WHICH ALIGHTED ON MY WlNDOW-BOXi Thou golden-tinted, vagrant butterfly Poised lightly on a blue-green flower, Did you not quiver as I came nigh, Thou golden-tinted vagrant butterfly. Just a chiselled bit of sunset-sky Would seem dropped into my bower Thou golden-tinted vagrant butterHy Poised lightly as a blue-green Hower. C C 695? A glittering brook, fanned by the waving flowers, Along its edge, that watch all day The golden sunbeams gliding through the hours Till sunlight fades, and crested shadows play. R. F. 75