The Fool’s eyes were round with amazement.  “No sod house?” But the other was sunk into a reverie and gave no answer.  The Fool stood first on one foot, then on the other, then with his old smile he turned and skipped away.  As he returned through the night, walking, hopping, or running, as the need came to him, he crooned to himself a song he had once made up.

  “My lips are a-tremble with a grave little song. 
  I care not if the wide world hear.’ 
  Its words happened forth as I dreamed and trudged along. 
  I care not if the wide world hear.

  “It has not worth nor weight, it is neither sweet nor strong. 
  I care not if the wide world hear. 
  For I sing it to myself when the great doubts throng
  And I care not if the wide world hear.”

That was all, but he hummed it with great content, beating time with one hand; and as for the King’s Favorite, for all that Preferment rideth on the pommel of his saddle, I doubt not he never sang such a song to himself, or took such pleasure in the singing.

Literary Monthly, 1907.

THE IMMIGRANTS

HORACE HOLLEY ex-’10

  Upon mine ear a deep, unbroken roar
  Thunders and rolls, as when the moving sea,
  Too long asleep, pours on th’ resisting shore
  Full half his cohorts, tramping audibly.

  Yet here’s no rushing of exasperate wind,
  Booming revolt amidst a factious tide;
  Nor hateful shock on toothed reef and blind,
  Of foaming waves that with a sob subside.

  No! but more fateful than the restless deep,
  Whose crested hosts rise high but fall again,
  I hear, in solemn and portentous sweep,
  The slow, deliberate marshalling of men.

  No monarch moves them, pawns to gain a goal;
  They felt a fever rising in the soul.

Literary Monthly, 1909.

PROPHECY

HORACE HOLLEY ex-’10

  All verse, all music; artistry
    Of cunning hand and feeling heart,
  All loveliness, whate’er it be,
    Is but the hint and broken part

  Of that vast beauty and delight
    Which man shall know when he is free;
  When in his soul the alien night
    Folds up like darkness from the sea.

  For e’en in song man still reveals
    His ancient fear, a mournful knell;
  Like one who dreams of home, but feels
    The bonds of an old prison cell.

Literary Monthly, 1909.

ASHES OF DREAMS

PHILO CLARKE CALHOUN ’10