St Johns College - Yearbook (Annapolis, MD)

Page 130 text:

But, alas! the cleep'ning darkness spreads its dusky mantle ,l'O1.ll1d, Bringing back the eheerless Presentg :incl I heave a sigh profound- As the charr'd and smoking embers on the hearthstone break and lie. So my spirits, like the embers, broken wholly, clroop and die. But, enough--away all sadness Q toward the Past my thoughts incline - And I quaff a farewell bumper to those olcl schoolmates ol mine. ?Nf -x l '. 1213 , Q' ' ' Q' Q' 9. f , . X' -, , V , R 1 A . e 2 lit . Qf':4 , L. sz t ,NW N K,Lb sign' '55

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4 if .Wetrospeetive 77iew. 'I I l I I' HE dark'ning twilight deepens, and the eve grows cold and chill, As I sit before the fire, and with careful fingers fill My pipe with Golden Sceptre, while amid the circling clouds Of fragrant smoke, my fancy the shadowy Past enshrouds With a cloak of gladsome mem'ries - I take a sip of wine As I greet once more in fancy those old schoolmates of mine. The log-tire cracks and hisses, while within the ruddy blaze I see the well-known figures 3 and in the far-off, misty haze Of a Past full well remembered, I can hear the songs we sung. 'Neath the gnarled, old poplar gather'd, e'er the chapel bells were rung - The familiar faces haunt me, and I cannot but repine As I fill another beaker to those old schoolmates of mine. Where are they who, as my comrades, tlirong'd the campus 'and 'the hall P Some now struggle in Life's battle, fair young Pleasure some enthrall 3 At the shrine of Beauty others pleading suppliants come and bow. 'Mong the latter are the Juniors, striving for their sheepskins now. Ah l together I will pledge ye 3 flow for all the rosy wine- Fill to brimming Mem'ry's goblet for those old schoolmates of mme. T54 ,

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some 3emz'nz'scences. HY USDURNI5 I. Ylil.l.0'l I', 'QL llllmtrnlcd by the Authorzj HO of Ninety-one and thereabouts doesn't remember Ike l' VVier, the slugger-poet of Ninety-two, and Bill l lipps, the agrarian of the Class of Ninety-one ? Of course, we remem- ber others of both those classes, but no one who ever writhed in silent agony on Sun- day afternoons on the third or fourth Hoor of l ii1kney while the strains of an CXtCllllDOI'lZCtl selection from a home-made violin filled the air with their dismal wailings can ever forget Ike , 3 Wier, and no one who witnessed, or was in any way a party to llill liflipps, escape from a second-story window of Pinkney one windy night in December upon the alarm of hazers being carried to him, can forget .llill lflipps. Ike VVier wasn't the only violinist we had to bear dur- ing our stay in l7inkney, but he was by all odds the most persistent. The others were content to follow the old masters in their selections, and if Annie Rooney seemed to be a general favorite among our musicians, we never bore them any 1nalice- we took it out on the man who wrote the blasted thing. llut lke was different. Ysaye's wildest flights of violinic fancy set no standard or limits for lke's musings in the same line. l think he I had two more strings on his violin than Ysaye generally uses, one taken from an old bass viol and the other from a mandolin. V I could always tell the status of Ike's love affairs by the nature of the tones which proceeded from his room. I got so after awhile that I could tell just what he had had for dinner. At times he would stride madly up and down the hall, sounding forth with utmost vehemence the mad- dest utterings that l. ever heard from any musical instru- ment except the throat of an angry bull. On those occasions I would quietly barricade my door and make ready for fiight from the window. l. always abhorred murder, and if there had to be murder I didn't want to be a party to it. On other occasions the tiniest wren could not equal Ike's violin in the softness of its wooings or the grace of its tender chirpings. Seldom did he play an old familiar air, ex-cept by request 5 his apparent aim in life was to put in music the inmost feelings of his heart. or stomach, a good enough aim, provided you are not a misanthrope or a chronic dyspeptic. As I said in open- ing, who could forget him P I will not tell here the particulars of Flipps' escape from the second-story window of Pinkney, it's a long story, and, besides, I think I was bound to eternal secrecy