South Side High School - Optimist Yearbook (Newark, NJ)

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SENIOR OPTIMIST Page Six SENIOR CLASS OFFICERS Walter Gavron, Presiclentg Berenice Stein, Vice-Presidentg Ruth Schott, Secretary fnot shown abovej g and Ruth Sykes, Treasurer, are the class officers choseri by the Senior Class for their excellent qualiications and as a token of our great esteem.

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SENIOR OPTIMIST WOODFIRE DREAMS Softly, like hushed laughter the wood in the campfire crackles. The re- flection of the flames throws a dim iridescence over the scene. How easy it is for one to lie back and dream. The swaying of the fire seems like thousands of dancers moving before me. The crisp sound that is the flame as it hungrily licks the wood, reminds one of the lilt of a thousand violins. It reminds me of an opera. I can hear the heroine with a high clear voice that soars through song like a bird through the heavens. I think that I shall be an opera singer, if only in my imagination. How wonderful it would be. How glorious to live the part of Verdi's Aida or Wagner's Isolde Or to be Cho-Cho-San the tragic heroine of Puccini's Madame Butterfly. How beautifully the melody of the flames gently sweeps onward and upward. They dance in leaps and bounds reaching to caress the sky. A dancer! Yes, perhaps I would like to be a dancer. To dance as the flames before me are Hitting, gracefully and featherlike. To dance before thousands of people, mindful only of the throbbing of the violins, to follow the music freely like a carefree gypsy in his wanderings. Perhaps I would like to be a gypsy, to merely wander o'er the land, living with nature as one of her children. To gather with others around the campfire in the evening to dance and sing. I can hear the guitars and the sobbing of the violins amidst the sound of happy voices and the leaping flame of the fire. My fire is also leaping and subsiding only to leap again higher than before. The world is so full of beauty that to describe it is a breathless art in itself. To describe to others a beautiful aria, a floating dance or the Vagabond life of a gypsy is glorious. The poet does this. Yes, now I know more than all other things I would like to be a poet. To show my readers a dancer as she whirls and dips as if blessed with wings. To bring to the world the voice of a beautiful singer so that they may thrill to the beauty of her song. To have my readers feel the abandon of the gypsy dancing, by the light of a campfire. Yes, I shall be a poet to bring beauty to the world through the efforts of my pen. My fire is now burning slowly and softly. Once more there issues from it the sound of hushed laughter. Do you mock my dreams, fire? My dreams were beautiful although only dreams. Also beautiful is the music of your murmuring. Burn fire, burn a melody of flame for me. -Marjorie Cooper. A WINTER NIGHT The silvery moon glides over the darkened sky, Shimmering as it passes over the crystal lake. In the distance the glittering skates of maidens Glide over the frozen lake to the strains of The Skater's Waltz. Could ever a night be made more beautiful than this? -Madeline Loprete. Page Eight