The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1894-11-24
The 4HEOLOGIAN'S TALE.

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our pleasure party. flying from the town,
Steamed swift across the silver dimpled bay
To pass day among the arAs and groves
" hich edge the sea, like emeralds circling
pearls
We strolled and idled aimlessly,
Or wandered wondering among the schools
Which furnish brains Tor Anticipated skulls
ma pride in fossils living and delunct,
Until boltiag theologian came
And prohered US a dash out DER the waves.
We founded headlands. where the vessels
wreck,
And on our way bac6 to the messy piers
Half floating on the strong incoming tide,
Ills feathery oars just skimming the coal
waves
That rose as if to kiss the stroke they loved
He told US how he lost his dearest friend.
" i'll Chambers was my college chum; wild
Grand fellow, full of grand mobility.
The sage professors tapped their wrinkled
And Prophesied no good would come from
While he, with saws old, trite and pliable,
Went on his way more needless for their
words.
Until the thralI of Love had chained him fast.
TLen all the Drawer nature of man,
Not worthless but unkempt, grew better fruit,
He loved q will not say unworthily;
Tor Love makes sacred what it striveth for,
If It's poor heaven be built above a hellD
A g1lded trinket an artistic bait;
y musicboX craZed with its own sweet voice;
Stealing q Thousand airs trCm other tunes;
A strange enigma, doubling all but Doubt
ed by whIln, and. whimful, leading all;
4 woman-merely lacking womanhoOd!
lie welded his strong life unto this chance,
That, passing, bore with 1t bitter wreck.
You see those castellated towers that rise
Above the murm'rous emerald sea of leaves?
Some rich, old dowagers, acidulate,
There founded for the painting sisterhood
y noble school, whose motto: Equal Rights:
Whose practice, social wrongs; degrees cursed
homes
And suffrage-p pleading, celibatic rant
twas there my friends sweet angler, school
ing, dwet;
And deity hooked him, held him, played
with him.
We bridged the dreaded graduation-day-
That seal of shallow-headed verdancy
Which, passed, swings back the gates erst
barred with gold.
Transforming rhetoric to pleas for gain
And Slittering palms TO cOmmonest mush-
And came from out the grave professors
hands
White. shapely loaves, but thoroughly I'M
baked,
And fingered still; 1, waiting on his whims;
While he, in servIle, mute expectancy
Ihe word that stranded or ennobled him.
WestrolIed among the lonely college grounds,
And, owl-Iike nightly frightened villagers:
OR, clustered III the friendly shrubbery,
Sang sonnets to his love behind the lights
Which, like an hundred fire-flies, glinted
An hundred sturdy oaks and sycamores.
Trembling from pulsing breaths borne from
the sea
And nodding to the tender sacriIege;
or ranbled down the dreamful beach, stretch
ing
Like white ribbon to the distant town.
And chatted with the tawny fishermen
Who drew their seines and grew brown in the
SGn;
Or in some rotten hulk braved every wave
Iailing the ghostly ships which glided out,
While sluggish sailors hove us friendly line
OR cursed Us tor our silly aIdihood.
o those old days. those near, yet far-oft days!
SO near. so far. so full OF minstrel lays!
When spendthrift hearts all went a-gypsy-
Cared naught for form, or statute-law, or
king,
But lived in melodies!
o those old days, those 0reamfuI, quiet days!
PACED with dear legends, winsome with sweet
Their voices toned to thrilling murmurings.
The psalm OF life ldyllic backward brings,
BewiGched with memories!
III.
o those old days, those truest, purest DAYS!
SO sad, so dear, SO full OF tender grace!
Whose heart utlingerS on their boundaries
Coming them DER with misty, learning
And Tor the future prays?
BY hand oftrembling GRAND girl at last
\ dainty letter came, though Ia all stealth.
1ll-used and crumpled as il doubt and fear
Were stamped III each soiled blot or hurried
fold
Tomorrow shall graduate: that IS,
Unless the horrid meantime drive me wild
scarce dare write tand yet she trembling
wrote >;
I'm sure love you all that can love.
Cfhis, hall erased yet plainly readable.)
I've cried my eyes out over my address,
You're good TO be SO patient with me now.
Dear fellowl am nearly sure I'm yours =
How can help II, when you plead so hard?
] know IL 5 as you say: The years ia e gone
and, passing left TO each a tender grace;
a something like sacred pilgrimage;
y foot-sore journey, but Iove-land gaInedt
They're talking in the university
OF rendering me the new professorShip
You know how strict our forms and prin-
ciples.
Oh, sweetheart! Only tell me what to do.
And yet / know: Be wholly yours and fling
This wild ambition TO the summer winds"
And so my friend was carried up to heaven
And in his ecstacy sang as he passed:
"a man tonight! \ man among men,
q trembling balance of soy and pain -
I love the world with its wild, grand tides
Brimful OF beauty and good besidesi
NV heart is warming TO All OF earth;-
Strange that L never before found worth,
So strange that one should have lived so long
Amono the reapcrs without their glad song
I've found so much OF earth's melody
I'm sure / shall sing my heart away!
NV soul beats time to this glad loye-rhyme:
NV heaven is hers; her heaven is miner'
The morrow came; the first commencement
Gay
This university had ever known;
And all the people far and near were there.
The city sent its thousands out, and took
A holiday TO see the pretty snow.
Grave savanS, big with prophecy, had come;
And some were there whose hearts were beat
ing fast
From bruitings of the troubled days beyond
but as the crowds filled up the grounds, and
droned
AS when an hundred busy hives send forth
Their workers a wilG, glad day IN June,
And chatted gaily Till the hour arrived,
Antagonists were lost. and all the place
Was like n hower-parterre, sWayed by the
wind;
And when the graduates flied grandly by,
Sweet, tair and fresh in budding woman
hood,
10 take their stations on tine covered stand,
tIowered and tapestried by deit, white hands
Not quite estranged from dainty arts OF loYel