A Williams Anthology Part 10

ARTHUR KETCHUM '98

Adrift in taintless seas she dreaming lies, The island city, time-worn now, and gray, Her dark wharves ruinous, where once there lay Tall ships, at rest from far-sea industries.

The busy hand of trade no longer plies Within her streets. In quiet court and way The gra.s.s has crept--and sun and shadows play Beneath her elms, in changing traceries; The years have claimed her theirs, and the still peace Of wind and sun and mist, blown thick and white, Has folded her. The voices of the seas Through many a soft, bright day and brooding night Have wrought her silence, wide as they, and deep, And dreaming of the past, she waits--asleep.

_Literary Monthly_, 1897.

THE GYPSY STRAIN

ARTHUR KETCHUM '98

It comes with the autumn's silence, When great Hills dream apart, And far blue leagues of distance Call to the Gypsy-heart.

When all the length of sunny roads, A lure to restless feet, Are largesses of goldenrod And beck of bitter-sweet.

Then the wand'rer in us wakens And out from citied girth, To go a-vagabonding down The wide ways of the Earth.

_Literary Monthly_, 1898.

THE SONG OF THE CAVALIERS

JAMES B. CORCORAN ex-'01

When our sabers rattle merrily against our lances' b.u.t.t, And our bugles ring out clearly in the coolness of the dawn, You can see the guidons waving as the ranks begin to shut, And the morning sun beams forth on the sabers that are drawn.

Then the bits begin to jangle and our horses paw the air, When we vault into the saddle and we grasp the bridle-rein; Of danger we are fearless and for death we do not care, For we fight for good Don Carlos and the grim grandees of Spain.

So to horse and away, At the break of day, With never a thought of fears; For Spain and the right We'll die or we'll fight, Sing ho, for the cavaliers!

As we gallop through the villages or through the sylvan glades, Merry maid and buxom matron smile and wave as we ride by; There are broken hearts behind us as well as broken blades, For the cavaliers are gallants till the war-notes rend the sky.

But when summer breezes waver and grow cold with news of war, We gird our good swords closer and we arm us for the fight; Maid and wine cup fade behind us, lance and helmet to the fore, And we wheel into our battle line for Carlos and the right.

So to horse and away, At the break of day, With never a thought of fears; We'll die or we'll fight, For Spain and the right; Sing ho, for the cavaliers

When at last the brazen bugles ripple out the ringing charge, We rise up in our stirrups and we wave our swords on high, The dust clouds rise beneath us, and the demons seem at large-- The cavaliers are charging in to conquer or to die.

Grim death may claim his victims from out our whirling ranks, Our plumes may be down-trodden in the grimy, b.l.o.o.d.y sod: The cavaliers will meet their fate without a word of thanks, But they've died for good Don Carlos, for old Spain, and for their G.o.d.

So to horse and away, At the break of day, With never a thought of fears; We'll die or we'll fight For Spain and the right; Sing ho, for the cavaliers!

_Literary Monthly_, 1897.

RECOMPENSE

CHARLES P. PARKHURST '98

At dawn he toils the steep to gain the flower, The lure that beckons from the height afar; Noon wanes to eve, the bloom has fled, but lo!

High in the purple night there gleams a star.

_Literary Monthly_, 1897.

CERVERA AT ANNAPOLIS

HENRY R. CONGER '99

They crowded round to see him, great and small, The conquered admiral of a conquered fleet, Shorn of his glories, thrown from his high seat, Great by the very greatness of his fall.

Hope, honor, fortune, lost beyond recall, Greyhaired and bitter-hearted; doomed to meet His country's censure, sharper than defeat; His foeman's pity--that was worst of all.

He heard them faintly, as one hears, amuse, Amid his vision voices far away That call him from sad dreams to sadder day; For he was where he would be could he choose, At peace beneath the waters of the bay, Where all his ships lay silent with their crews.

_Literary Monthly_, 1898.

THE ANSWER

DWIGHT W. MARVIN '01

I wondered why the western hills were always smiling so, Until one evening when the heavens were like a fiery sea; For, as the Sun crept down the sky amid the sunset-glow, He paused upon the western hills, and kissed them tenderly.

_Literary Monthly_, 1900.

ONE OF THE PLODDERS

HARRY JAMES SMITH '02

Through the gathering gloom of a summer evening a young man walked wearily up the dusty road toward the Waring farmhouse. In each hand he carried a br.i.m.m.i.n.g pail and as he stepped along the milk in them flopped softly against their tin sides. Out from the white streak of sky behind his figure stood strongly relieved in silhouette, large, stooping, dispirited. The whole att.i.tude was one of extreme fatigue, though for the silence and automatic movement of him you might almost think him a piece of ambulatory mechanism. Once or twice, to be sure, he turned his head, perhaps to look off over the cultivated fields and to calculate the labor still to be put on them, or possibly to draw a sort of unconscious, tired satisfaction from these encouraging results of so many weary hours. At any rate his pace never altered. Overhead the large maple trees reached their glooming branches in a mysterious, impenetrable canopy that rustled softly in the dusky silence. For the night was still, despite the squeaking of katydids and the distant peep of frogs. Along the sides of the road as it stretched on ahead like a brownish ribbon and vanished under the farther trees, ran stone walls, low and ma.s.sive, and sharply hemming in the dusty highway from the cool, green fields beyond.

David Waring was not consciously aware of anything in the world, but his whole body was alive to the antic.i.p.ation of the near end of his day's work. A few minutes more and he should have set the milk into the coolers, thrown off his overalls, and washed himself in cold spring water--and then he could drop into a chair on the quiet porch and take his ease.