Schuster School - Proscenium Yearbook (Cincinnati, OH)

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The Opened Door BY GERTRUDE EVERTS BRICE. I was restless, within me strove a great yearning; My chained heart longed for freedom, as a caged bird for the open sky. I searched for life's meaning in secret, in vain I read the works of scholars, Blind were my weary eyes, for the house of my soul was darke- Till one day you opened its door. You called me out into the sunlight. Why had I never thought to open the door myself? Enchantment BY GERTRUDE EVERTS BRICE. Starlight entangled in a girl's sweet hair, The warm whisper ofa little sigh From fresh lips parting like an opening bud, Woven weblike in great Circe's loom. Page fifty-eig'ht

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promised to help the west wind as he Hew near the Irish shore, and Zephyr burst into a great laugh, frightening the people with his merry storms. Early in the evening great bronze clouds came chasing up the sky from the horizon. The copper-tinted sea grew darker in the swiftly gathering gloom, and reflected ominously the lurid scud. Made fearful by the shrieking 0f the rushing wind, the night set in. The old ship creaked and shivered in the gale. Each board and plank in her cried aloud as the blast struck. With a great leap of joy she felt herself torn out of the sand, and lifted on the rushing waves. The surf pounded madly against the strong, old wall, who trembled with the shock. He felt his great age as never before, and as the seething water sucked the sand from un- der his tottering feet, he felt that the end of his long life of watching was at hand. He stood erect, withstanding the furious waves and the boisterous wind, but the turning of the tide bore away the relic of the once stately ship. Farewell, he called, through the beating ivy. iiThere are dynamic forces greater than circumstance, the power of whose intricate workings we do not guess. Even with the knowledge of the eternal iwill to live,' which of us can foretell his destiny? The sand was sinking under his slipping feet. The ivy felt him quiver from base to cornice. The branches were torn as if the wall Were rending his garments in woe. Zephyr roared with mirth as he tossed the great foaming waves against the breaking heart of the staunch old veteran. In the bleak dawn the wall gave way with a crashing groan, and the sea rushed into the town. After many days of warring elements, of destruction, of dread, of death, 01d Zephyr Hew oft to toss the tops of the redwoods in California, leaving the struggling survivors in the devastated Irish Village to mourn their dead and to restore the town. The sun shone on a sapphire sea, the white beach, and the ruins of the wall. Shin- ing drops like tears stood on the massive stones that had fallen down to till the hollow in the sand where the 01d ship had been. To-day, among the ancients of that village, you may hear many strange tales of the sea. Only a few old gaffers whose blue eyes still twinkle, but whose black hair has long been gray, remember the great storm that bore away the ship and shattered the old wall. They speak with awe over their long-stemmed pipes, nod- ding their heads in reminiscent wonder. Some of the oldest among them lost wives or sweethearts in the Hood, but most were children at the time, and never since have they witnessed anything to compare with the terrors of that tempest. Many think that the ivy loosened the stones of the wail. and, when the sand and earth were washed away, it could no longer stand. Some say the gale, tearing at the ivy branches which clung between the stones, weakened the massive masonry. One old Fish wife, who contentedly smokes a stumpy black pipe, says the truth of the matter lay in the wali's affection for the ship. He could not bear to live longer without her company. The others laugh and wink, and puff their pipes. She is old and foolish, they say, and they nod to one another knowingly. Page rifty-sevml

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