6
THE LIBRARY PAGE;
R. H. SHUFFLER Editor
H. C. GIVENS Asso. Editor
J. R. KEITH Asso. Editor
G. M. WREN Asso. Editor
J. W. RILEY Asso. Editor
Those wishing to contribute to this
page turn work in to any member of
staff, or mail to Editor at 94 Stu
dents’ Exchange.
Readers of The Library Page will
note, with varying degrees of pleas
ure that the present number is de
voted more largely to verse than
to prose. While no one of the three
local poets whose work is presented
here seems yet to have reached the
top of his form, it is encouraging
that there are at least three men in
Texas A. and M. College who have
felt the thrill of hunting for the
exact word and for the precise lift
of a line that will reflect their idea
or mood, and who (to give them
scrupulously no more than their due)
have occasionally found them.
George Wren, one of our editors,
and contributor to this issue of God
and That Way Parnassus, has
appeared in the Library Page for
three years. Those who have follow
ed his work will have noticed that
its intellectual framework has in
creased in strength. The present
writer confesses to the unromantic
craving for point and meaning in
poetry. He therefore hails with pleas T
ure Mr. Wrenn’s gradual conversion
from the ecstatic, moonlight-roses-
girl school of verse to the ranks
of those who have something to say.
A certain bitter tang is noticeable
in the later pieces of this writer.
While it would be rude to suggest
that this arises from the usual by-
ronism of about the Junior and Sen
ior years in College, we may at
least be allowed to hope that ad
vancing age will bring with it at
any rate the compensation of a
slight increase in mellowness and
tolerance. Meanwhile, the ease and
deftness of his style, and above all
the quality of his ideas, improve
year by year.
God
Some find God in an oyster,
Some find God in a tree,
Some find God in a bottle,
But I find god in me.
—George M. Wrenn.
That Way Parnassus!
Two lowly blind pilgrims staggering,
Faltering along the rocky way.
Darkness and storms, intermittent
light
Momentarily as bright as day.
Broken staves, threadbare stoles,
A lone tinkle in their leathern pouch.
Onward they creep, nor know
Upwards or downwards! They
crouch
In disgust. There on a decrepit
bench,
A clown on a defunct Pegasus!
Insistently crying, nose held mean
while,
“Have courage men, Onward! That
way Parnassus!
—George M. Wrenn.
* * *
So far as the Temporary Editor
is aware, the gentleman who signs
THE BATTALION
himself “Giesey” is the first writer
to offer a sonnet for publication in
The Library Page. Everybody who
has ever tried his hand at verse
at all realizes that a sonnet is not
easy to write, and the high degree
of technical correctness in the poem
printed below is therefore in itself
worthy of considerable respect. The
rhyme-scheme which he has chosen,
while different from that of any
sonnet which the present writer has
seen, is carried out with perfect
consistency. The major divisions of
the sonnet—the octave of eight lines
divided into two quatrains; the ses
tet of six lines at the end—follow
perfectly the divisions in the thought
of the poem. As for individual lines,
only two, the first and the last,
are technically questionable,—the
first being short a syllable, which
is wholly justifiable; the last being
too crowded with syllables which
demand heavy stresses, which is not
so excusable, especially as the last
line is otherwise the most telling
in the poem.
The content of the Sonnet is not
so interesting as its finish. Here
are fourteen correct lines of verse,
all of them carefully considered,
many of them (such as “That lights
him on to find old ironies”) decided
ly musical, and several of them stud
ded with striking images (“And all
the rest could pass As gods or
ghosts in the smoke-shrouded air”).
And yet all this respectable tech
nical effort is lavished on a study
of the old old kind of Desperate
Ambrose party who has figured in
the “Early Poems” of hundreds of
romantic poets,—more particularly
since Byron’s time. Without being
in any ridiculous degi'ee suggestive
of the Ass in the Lion’s skin, Mr.
Giesey’s mastery of technique is
none the less entirely too sound to
be spent on gloomy Byronic heroes
and broken vases.
Sonnet
Born of flame, he cannot quench
the fire
That lights him on to find old iron
ies.
To use as weapons in his private
mire
For his lost contests with finalties.
He sins in vain and watches nights
and days
Die uselessly before his careless
eyes
While devil-things chant a mad
hymn of praise
In honor of the bitter and the wise.
He’d laugh, he said; he’d laugh and
he’d be glad
He’d take his fill and all the rest
could pass
As gods or ghosts in the smoke-
shrouded air;
And we, the Wise Ones, never find
him sad
When, evenings, in the bottom of a
glass
Wine—magic brings back his lost
kingdoms there.
—Giesey.
* * *
The Broken Vase
He swore he would not turn again
Back to the rose and flame;
He broke the vase a.nd went away,
And she forgot his name—
It was her way—but bitter years
Have taught him with hard grace
That roses leave a fragrance still
About a broken vase.
—Giesey.
From the sinister depth of the
Biology Department comes the fol
lowing effusion, unsigned and un
acknowledged. While the Temporary
Editor would never dream of hinting
that it proceeded from the dignified
pen of the distinguished Head of that
Department, he confesses to being
at a loss to account otherwise for
the union of biological erudition and
classical polish which characterize
it, and which seems to him to savor
of equally Nineteenth Century Ger
many and Virginia of the Old Re
gime.
The Microbe’s Serenade.
A love-lorn Microbe met by chance
At a swagger Bacteroidal dance,
A proud Bacillan Belle, and she
Was first of the Animalculae.
Of organisms saccharine
She was the protoplasmic Queen,—
The miscroscopical pride and pet
Of the Biological smartest set.
And so this infinitesimal swain
Evolved a pleading low refrain:
“Oh, lovely metamorphic germ
What futile scientific term
Can well describe your many
charms ?
Come to these embryonic arms,
Then hie away to my cellular home
And be my little Diatom.”
His epithelium burned with love;
He swore by the Molecules above
She’d be his own Gregarious mate
Or else he would disintegrate.
This amorous mite of a parasite
Pursued the germ both day and
night.
And neath her window often played
This Darwin-Huxley serenade—
He’d warble to her every day
This rhizopodical roundelay—
“O, most primordial type of Spore,
I never saw your like before!
And tho’ a Microbe has no heart,
From you, sweet Germ, I’ll never
part;
We’ll, sit beneath some fungus
growth
Till Dissolution claims us both!”
* * *
Mr. Bill Jones, a Fish of low de
gree, contributes a few drops of con
centrated vitriol to our brew. As
pointed and polished language, with
a powerful thrust of indignant ideal
ism behind it, it is, as the other
poets will be the first to agree, the
best thing we have. As a series of
efforts of the imagination to find
biting comparisons for Man and The
College Student, the unfortunate
victims of his shriveling scorn, it
is distinctly exhilarating. But as
poetry—as distinguished from prose
epigram—it leaves something to be
desired.
I.
I am a fool born of fools and des
tined to be the father of fools.
I am an idiot that fancies himself
a philosopher.
I am a link that thinks itself the
chain, a cog posing as an axle.
I am a dumbell that thinks himself
a thinker.
I am a conformist that calls himself
an originator.
I am a gnat that sees himself God.
I am destruction that pretends it
self creator.
I am man.
—Bill Jones, ’32.
II.
I am a baby that orates of nothing.
I am a monkey that apes more fools.
I am a moron proud of my ignor
ance.
I am a rabbit gnawing at steel
bars.
I am an electron trying to be a
proton.
I am a goose that would be admired.
I am a hypocrite preaching sincere-
ty.
I am a candle that cannot see the
sun.
I am a grain of sugar in the sugar
bowl.
I am a college student.
— Bill Jones, ’32.
PALACE
Thursday - Friday - Saturday
Friday Csi U IL E N Saturday
RICHARD BARTHELMESS
—in—
“Out of The Ruins”
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