University of San Francisco - USF Don Yearbook (San Francisco, CA)

Page 16 text:

14 THE IGNAT I AN The Autumn leaves are brown and sere; And all the paths that brought us near Are fading off; it seems Our Island home will be the bars Whereon the foam of Cosmic wars Breaks from the guidons of the stars; 111 find you only there. Oh, Life has been a farce to me That turns at last to tragedy: I feel it isn’t long to be And I don’t even care.” Say, he was right, believe me. Bo; I learned the lesson long ago, And wonder why it is I go; What’s born in the bone Is measure of the blood, they say. Who? Harvard? Oh, he went away, I guess I’ll go myself some day With lots of them I’ve known. We hopped the freight for Chi one night, And I remember now how white His face was, and the fever’s light Was throbbing in his eyes; Then, Holy Smoke, how cold it grew. While grim we clung with fingers blue, Across the rods, a foot or two Above the snow-hid ties. For hours that were a space of Hell, A horror Dante couldn't tell. Half-frozen by the tempest’s swell, We still hung grimly on; Till, out across the flashing snow, I saw the lights of Buffalo: I turned my head to tell him so— And Harvard—he was gone; Gone as a thousand others go.

Page 15 text:

A SO SC OF THE ROAD 13 ( )r the flung snow-drift of the plains Freezes the life Flood in the veins ()f the unfit, for they That take the fortune of the road Shall know the force of hunger’s goad. They learn to write in hardship’s code The lives they fling away. There was one once, a pal I had. And with what clasp this siren mad Held him! He was a Harvard grad Who’d thrown life for a loss; He had a fighter’s jaw and lips. A hero's thews like corded whips From shoulder span to tapering hips. Lord! What a man he was! I hit like those fleeting storms that rise Across the changing vernal skies, Murned in the blue depths of his eyes. The world-old restlessness. And when life smiled—Alas! How rare! He'd sing me songs that told how fair The poet’s soul was bound somewhere Leneath the hobo’s dress. And many a lazy Summer day. Stretched on some meadow lawn we’d lay, While he regaled the hours away With tales his fancy drew; He’d conjure from his fertile brain Songs of the forest and the plain, And where, adown the Southern main. The Summer isles are blue; And ever would his poetry steal Lack to some fanciful Ideal, An Island kingdom—and Cecile. The lady of his dreams. “Cecile,’’ says he. “the days are drear.

Page 17 text:

a soxg of run road 15 Under the driving wheels; and though He’d lived and died a common Bo, Somehow I like to feel That somewhere in the realms of light Life's failures and life’s faults despite. Mis vagrant soul found rest that night, Mis island—and Cecile.