Scripps College - La Semeuse Yearbook (Claremont, CA)

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Of cormorants and gulls that wheeled and screamed. The kelp beds out Hom shore in russet gleamed. And under deepening skies where mauve and rose And Eiint unutterable silver tinged the sea, We talked of lik, and beauty, and of those Poets we loved who wrote about the sea, Arnold and Swinburne. As we talked, we three Felt the incredible loveliness of things, V Of weedy rocks and ocean's murmurings. As twilight softened, and the distant roar Of surges crashing on the narrow beach Fell to a faint susurrance as the shore In evening ebb grew calm and tideless, and as each Silver-rimmed wavelet raced with fainter reach, We held an hour with hushed, tense eagerness The iridescent Flower happiness. DAPHNE FRASER Prom C 'Charles Baudelaireu ENIILY ROSE scorr B A U D E L A I R E ' s satanism is an absorbing study. We can never be positive how much of his devil worship verse came from a desire to astonish and how much was born of a perverse admiration of lvlephisfto. That he actually worshipped the devil is absurd. Baudelaire showed great deference to his own genius and probably came nearer being a votary of Beauty than any- thing else. The poet took Beauty and Baudelaire very seriously. Lauding the Arch-Demon in poetry appealed to his taste for sensationalism, to his penchant for paradoxes. In a certain sense he used Satan as a symbol for mortal frailty, for all the crimes I9

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work in creative writing each year. The thought of the prize for the best Sophomore Comprehensive essay must have cheered many a weary Sophomore through the most nervous period of her college career. The Crombie Allen Awards for 1931 Poetry ........ . Elizabeth Ellen Long Marioim Eells Critical and Editorial Prose . . Caroline Bennet Imaginative Prose ........ Helen Norton Best Record in English Department Major ..... , ..... lean Symington Best Paper in Sophomore Comprehensives ....... lean Marie Consigny Best work in Literature Department of Freshman I-lumanities .... I-lelen Mears Land's-End T H E Y lie who say we know not happiness Until its radiance has dripped away Quicksilver-like, between the light caress Of hands in whose unknown palms it lay A glancing moment, careless if it stay, Until it ebbed and left an emptiness And sick remembrance of our heedlessness. We sat on that high cliff above the sea Where the coasts pulsing land-How halts to rest, And California stops. To the east dimly- The desert beach curves southward. To the west The ocean, mist-enwreathed. Below the nest A 18 Q

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and stupidities of humanity. The Devil stood for the awful, strenuous mess man has made of' living. I do not believe the artist enjoyed his vices. Sometimes they nauseated him, often he reveled in them. Always his evil left him lonely, melancholy and almost wistful .... I Eel strongly that Baudelaire's satan- ism was his policy of ridiculing people and their existence by singing the praises of Sin. There is no jovial good humor in this kind of literature, no lusty esprit Gaulois, no Whimsy. It is twisted, tired and ailing. It is at the same time filled with a passionate rancor. FYOITI C CZESCZIPCN CLAIRE TETLEIMAN E V E N in the dull swamp, pierced only occasionally by a ray of moonlight, his body glistened with slime. He was a tall man, Tomo, still in the prime of his life. Before he came to the island he had been a giant, a murderous one, but unconquerable. It had taken four men to arrest him. As he leaned against a tree trying to drive oft a desire for sleep, he thought of these things. A part of the tree detached itself fiom the trunk and wound slowly around him, twining about his arms, his neck, his body, his throat. Frantically he fought. Into his heart was coming the fear he had inspired in the hearts of two women he had choked to death. I-le fought, pulled, screamed, bit. But ever, slowly, remorselessly the brown tree-boa tightened its coils. Tomo gasped fiom purple distorted lips a prayer to the God he had never remembered in prayer before. Tomo's cries ceased. . . . . . . . . Escape?', The warden of Devil's Island was speaking to a group of newly arrived prisoners. Escape is impossible. The sea is before you, the swamp behindf, 20