Walton High School - Periwinkle Yearbook (Bronx, NY)

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A Sonnel lo Silence l stood alone upon a windy hill, The sky was ghostly gray, and on the ground A tew leaves tluttered, softly, without Sound, And then the air hung curtain-like and still, And silence took on torm betore my eyes, Like ancient hills inhabiting all space, And curving ever upward, tace to face, An undulating gesture to the skies. Nor was there light nor shade the earth around, But luminous twilight then did calmly dream, And pearl-gray heavens whence no star did gleam But made the tranquil stillness more profound. And l upon a windy hill did stand, Amid the quiet peace of a forgotten land. ROSE SOBEI. QQ O 6 5 I Q- I' -O I Q N l be

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7329 O 5 4 9 0. - .I 5 w I I BUSINESS AND ART BOARDS OF THE PERIWINKLE LITERARY BOARD OF THE PERIWINKLE

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O 9'l I I C 4 9 I s ccwhol o Diece olwork is Cl Nlclnln In one of his most celebrated works, Shakespeare has said, What a piece of work is a man, but if that eminent genius could be reincarnated and could reside in our world of to-day, with what sentiments would he view our present state of existence? Would his expectations be frustrated because Man in his progress had created a machine age which hindered him from perceiving and appreciating all that is beautiful in Nature, or would all lVlan's inven- tions appear to corroborate the accuracy of those famous lines? There is little besides the sky remaining of natural environ- ment in our cities of today, and even that lthough it is scarcely perceptible in the skyscraper sections of the cityl is dotted with numerous airplanes and occasional Zeppelins or concealed by the smoke of factories. What can be discerned of the heavens is hardly observed, people having become so accustomed to their artificial environment, the stars and moon by night are inconspicuous amidst the brilliant illumination of a great city, only the annual appear- ance of the asteroids or the eclipse engage the curiosities of city residents. The majority would rather view the stars of l-lollywood in their stuffy neighborhood movie-houses than the phenomenal per- formances of stars and other celestial bodies in a clear evening sky. The country roads, lined with advertising bill-boards, the rivers, crowded with dirty, smoky barges and ferries, railroads steaming across the country, tenements and the filthy, crowded streets of the slums, the noise of the cities,-all these might have given Shake- speare an unfavorable impression of our civilization. l-lowever, if Shakespeare would assume an altogether different attitude, and would consider us in a different light, he might glorify our times and immortalize our era for posterity as he has immortal- ized the Elizabethian period for us. Our lofty, imposing modern buildings may be thought of four centuries from now as the arms of lVlan, reaching forever upward, exemplifying our eternal craving for knowledge and desire for adventure and discovery, with the sky as our limit. Our landcraft-from automobile to locomotive, our seacraft-from speedboat to ocean liner, our aircraft-from biplane to dirigible--all are encouraging good-will among men by bringing them closer together. Our people, progressing rapidly, are all striving to attain some ideal, some form of Utopia, some leading, such as the scientists, philosophers, artists of all fields,