Yeshiva University - Masmid Yearbook (New York, NY)

Page 23 text:

MASMID 21 EARTHBOUND Wet, dark night! Harsh, cold rain! Rough, wild wind! Let me sleep! While all were plunged in senseless torpor, Two sleepless nights I spent. Purged was the world of human souls. Only divine clay was strewn upon the earth. Souls were on an ephemeral holiday — Only my spirit, shackled to the earth By worldly cares. Did not rise. And in the silence my soul clamored for hct soul In vain. But yesterday she came to me To soothe me in my yearning; I was happy And I thought I had outwitted you, Implacable world! But you still keep sleep from my eyes. Wet, dark night! Harsh, cold rain! Rough, wild wind! Let me sleep! JUDAH SHAPIRO

Page 22 text:

20 MASMID By Israel Upbin AVE you ever had that sighing, restless feeUng while alone in your room? It makes you want to shout out loudly, and you are about to cry out feebly under tightly- pressed lips — half giving way and immensely troubled for slipping so far . . . chilled, lonely and isolated. Things are spectres, listening and bussing with their hushed whispers as they loom about you — watching you and shadowing you .... and a tremulous sigh slips out of you before you can stop it ... . and you are holding back a sob. Thoughts of your folks may have set you off dreaming maudlin dreams. Everything is distant and vague. YouVe tiny — too chagrined and bewildered with yourself to ... . well .... cry .... or at least stop that twitching and aching — and the burning in your eyes. Outside, down the corridor, there ' s laughter — and you somehow feel there ' s a dull, rasping rdge to it. Hoarse laughter, rushing through the corridors and stealing through your heart — leaving you cold and forlorn. You look wildly ibout you, your face twisted into a blank wry smile, to see if anybody is watching you. . . . Life is futile and overbearing. What the trouble is you don ' t know exactly, but you do feel things are harsh. You seek mental refuge in the familiarity of your home — at least the reminiscences of it. You dream. There ' s that Morris chair, your feet dangling lazily over the edge — you half sleeping, half day-dreaming in solid comfort .... Narrow strip ot garden in front of your home. It ' s nothing much, but yours is the only house on the street with a garden. Though that bit of earthly salvation from mediocrity is really nothing more than a few tufts of grass — almost withered wisps when you left them last — and a few bedraggled ferns, you ' re fond of it. Just now you ' d be straight- ening out that broken branch on that fern. . . There ' s warmth and comfort in your home You feel everything there is part of you; whem your thighs had worn off the edges of the leather upholstering and where your idle, dreamy scratching had made a gash in the wood. There ' s nothing prim or aloof about your home. Cigarette ashes and butts are strewn hap- hazardly near ash trays. Very few butts, thrown with your erring aim, have reached their mark. Then again, all the otner nousi-s on your street have an inevitable effulgence of laced floor-lamps but your home, devoid of this unsure-footed device, has an oddity you would not trade for the primmest of conventions. Two crossed foils, a few tattered banners, and some tennis rackets arrayed on the walls give your home the only virile air in the neighborhood. Here, you have sly shadows to shudder off .... Gee! you would like to re nome — well — no — then again .... yes, it would feel good! And then your eyes are suddenly brim- ming over with salty tears and you feel utterly lost! You hear your roomie ' s whistle along the corridor. You rub your eyes frantically, be- wildered. What to do next? . . . Open a book and start whistling! Mafce a mess of the tune and stop whistling as, Poking in that book again! Your roomie standing over you belligerently, puzzledly. You feel guilty and ashamed but . mething hard and resolute stiffens in your chest. You curse him peevishly and he slips out of the room, scratching his head dubiously and in mock despair. You fling the book across the room! Damn! Pick it up again, straighten the pages and go stolidly to bed. That night you hear your roomie mumbling to himself. Don ' t know what ' s come over that chap lately .... can ' t talk to him! And reading his book upside down . . . . And you curse wildly under your breath, and make wild grimaces, but you ' re afraid to disturb him . . . and you fall asleep, utterly exhausted! But with the realization that you ' ll meet him to morrow with laughter and gibes! Nit: ' How would you find the height of a building, using a thermometer? Wit: Tie the thermometer on a string and lower it down until it reaches the ground. Then mea. ' ure the string.

Page 24 text:

22 MASMID By Emanuel Neustadter LITHE, naked body glided along pur- 9y pie waters. Each move had in it J the graceful sway of an eel. Bulg ' ing muscles showed j ower and co- ordination behind every stroke. He was not a well-oiled machine, this human swimmer! He was a healthy, well-attuned ani- mal; muscles rippling, power in every plunge. Healthy heart pumping blood into expectant, demanding muscles exultant with strength and ghding fearlessly along at a plunging, unslack- ening pace. . . . Hours of it! Purple waters now black, inky waters. The muscles alone must sense and res- pond and direct and ward off. Dull mind! It will not rebel and mislead that graceful, sway- ing momentum. It was the resistance and push of these tense muscles alone that would carry the swimmer past this silent, dense darkness ahead of him. Mental justification and stimulus were feeble! So he had trained himself. Hours more! And then a faint trembling in the muscles, a bit of irregularity in the rhythm. Then an arm fluttered unsteadily and sent up some spray instead of cleaving the water sharply like a keen knife. Hesitancy, bewilderment, and some floundering about — then the rhythm had to be started again. But now there is something lacking! Is it an incomplete tug of the muscles, a half-hearted urging forward? Driftwood floated on those black waters. It was part of the instinct ' s task to sense these obstacles and to evade them without interrupting the rhythm. In mid-stroke the swimmer sud- denly saw a black piece of driftwood rise up beneath his face. It scraped his neck and shoul- ders and drifted on. The rhythm was not inter- rupted, the faltering stroke was completed — but a red, burning gash ran down from his neck to his shoulders. Slowly, measuredly the muscles wearied and the rhythm dragged. Then a mud- dled brain dictated rebellion to overworked mus- cles. A frenzy seized th e swimmer! His strokes were becoming feebler and feebler, his breath- ing more and more labored, his circulation more and more sluggish. Cold, fear, weariness, be- wilderment, despair — they played havoc with him. Then he sought within himself some drug, some hypnosis to still these strange, new hurts. Slowly and resolutely he drugged his mind. Then oblivion! A dull machine now of sinews and pliant fibers. The rhythm gathering speed, the monotonous, endlessly flailing strokes held their pace. The mind and soul were stilled. The flailing strokes kept on through the night. . . . Dawn was faintly breaking when the throngs along the beach saw the swimmer. He came nearer and nearer and then clambered ashore. People rushed to carry him off on their shoul- ders. They jumped back, aghast! The swim- mer was clammy, pale and cold. And he was asleep! Gosh Watch. . . Chicanery FAMOUS LAST WORDS no! This gun isn ' t A titanothrriid has arrived in this country aded, from Asia. That didn ' t mean much to us until the scientists kindly explained that a titan- othcriid is a perissodactyle ugulate. Teacher (to exceptionally dumb pupil) : Now, Johnny, if I had five eggs in this baskel and laid three on the table, how many would I have? Johnny (brightly): Eight! Consensus of Opinion of Lectures: — The longer the spoke, the bigger the tire.