A Williams Anthology Part 2

OPPORTUNITY

JOHN J. INGALLS '55

Master of human destinies am I; Fame, love, and fortune on my footsteps wait.

Cities and fields I walk; I penetrate Deserts and seas remote, and, pa.s.sing by Hovel and mart and palace, soon or late, I knock unbidden once on every gate.

If sleeping, wake; if feasting, rise before I turn away; it is the hour of fate, And they who follow me reach every state Mortals desire, and conquer every foe Save death; but those who doubt or hesitate, Condemned to failure, penury, and woe, Seek me in vain and uselessly implore; I answer not, and I return no more.

The date of first appearance of this sonnet is not known to the editors. It is extracted here from Professor A.L. Perry's _Williamstown and Williams College_, (1899), and of it Dr. Perry remarks "Ingalls also wrote a notable sonnet on 'Opportunity,' which will no doubt survive, for it has a fine form and considerable literary merit, though G.o.dless in every line."

AUTUMN

JAMES A. GARFIELD '56[1]

Old Autumn thou art here! upon the Earth And in the heavens, the signs of death are hung; For o'er the Earth's brown breast stalks pale decay, And 'mong the lowering clouds the wild winds wail, And, sighing sadly, chant the solemn dirge O'er summer's fairest flowers, all faded now.

The Winter G.o.d, descending from the skies, Has reached the mountain tops, and decked their brows With glittering frosty crowns, and breathed his breath Among the trumpet pines, that herald forth His coming.

Before the driving blast The mountain oak bows down his h.o.a.ry head, And flings his withered locks to the rough gales That fiercely roar among the branches bare, Uplifted to the dark unpitying heavens.

The skies have put their mourning garments on And hung their funeral drapery on the clouds.

Dead Nature soon will wear her shroud of snow And lie entombed in Winter's icy grave.

Thus pa.s.ses life. As h.o.a.ry age comes on The joys of youth--bright beauties of the spring, Grow dim and faded, and the long dark night Of Death's chill Winter comes. But as the spring Rebuilds the ruined wrecks of Winter's waste, And cheers the gloomy earth with joyous light, So o'er the tomb, the Star of Hope shall rise, And usher in an ever during day.

_Quarterly_, 1854.

[Footnote 1: Died 1881.]

IN THE FOREST

ANON.

We lie beneath the forest shade Whose sunny tremors dapple us; She is a proud-eyed Grecian maid And I am Sardanapalus; A king uncrowned whose sole allegiance Resides in dusky forest regions.

How cool and liquid seems the sky; How blue and still the distance is!

White fleets of cloud at anchor lie And mute are all existences, Save here and there a bird that launches A shaft of song among the branches.

Within this alien realm of shade We keep a sylvan Pa.s.sover; We happy twain, a wayward maid, A careless, gay philosopher; But unto me she seems a Venus And Paphian gra.s.ses nod between us.

Her drooping eyelids half conceal A vague, uncertain mystery; Her tender glances half reveal A sad, impa.s.sioned history; A tale of hopes and fears unspoken Of thoughts that die and leave no token.

"Oh braid a wreath of budding sprays And crown me queen," the maiden says; "Queen of the shadowy woodland ways, And wandering winds, whose cadences Are unto thee that tale repeating Which I must perish while secreting!"

I wove a wreath of leaves and buds And flowers with golden chalices, And crowned her queen of summer woods And dreamy forest palaces; Queen of that realm whose tender story Makes life a splendor, death a glory.

_Quarterly_, 1856.

CORSICA

ANON.

A lonely island in the South, it shows Its frosted brow, and waves its s.h.a.ggy woods, And sullenly above the billow broods.

Here he that shook the frighted world arose.

'Twas here he gained the strength the wing to plume, To swoop upon the Arno's cla.s.sic plains, And drink the n.o.blest blood of Europe's veins-- His eye but glanced and nations felt their doom!

Alas! "how art thou fall'n, oh Lucifer, Son of the morning!" thou who wast the scourge And glory of the earth--whose nod could urge.

Proud armies deathward at the trump of war!

And did'st thou die on lone Helena's isle?

And art thou nought but dust and ashes vile?

_Quarterly_, 1857.

LOOKING BACKWARD

WAs.h.i.+NGTON GLADDEN '59

From one who belonged in a remote antiquity to the fraternity of college editors, a contribution to this centennial number[1] has been solicited. Perhaps I can do no better than to recall a few impressions of my own life in college. Every year, at the banquet, I observe that I am pushed a little nearer to the border where the almond tree flourishes, and I shall soon have a right to be reminiscent and garrulous. At the next centennial I shall not be called on; this is my last chance.

I came to college in the fall of 1856. My cla.s.s had been in college for a year, so that the vicissitudes of a freshman are no part of my memory. I shall never forget that evening when I first entered Williamstown, riding on the top of the North Adams stage. The September rains had been abundant, and the meadows and slopes were at their greenest; the atmosphere was as nearly transparent as we are apt to see it; the sun was just sinking behind the Taconics, and the shadows were creeping up the eastern slopes of Williams and Prospect; as we paused on the little hill beyond Blackinton the outline of the Saddle was defined against a sky as rich and deep as ever looked down at sunset on Naples or Palermo. I thought then that I had never seen a lovelier valley, and I have had no occasion to revise that judgment.

To a boy who had seen few mountains that hour was a revelation. On the side of the picturesque, the old way of transportation was better than the new. The boy who is dumped with his trunks at the station near the factory on the flat gets no such abundant entrance into Williamstown as was vouchsafed to the boy who rode in triumphantly on the top of Jim Bridges' stage.

The wide old street was as hospitable then as now; if the elms were something less paternal in their benediction their stature was fair and their shade was ample; but the aspect of the street--how greatly changed since then! There were two or three fine old colonial houses, which are standing now and are not likely to be improved upon; but most of the dwellings were of the orthodox New England village pattern, built, I suppose, to square with the theology of the Shorter Catechism, or perhaps with the measurements of the New Jerusalem, the length and breadth and height of which are equal. The front yards were all enclosed with fences, none of which were useful and few of which were ornamental. The broad-shouldered old white Congregational meeting-house stood at the top of the street in Field Park; it was the goal of restless Soph.o.m.ores for several hours every Sunday, and it was also the goal of all ambitious contestants for college honors. Griffin Hall was then chapel, museum, laboratories, and recitation-rooms; East, South, and West Colleges, with Kellogg Hall, on the West lawn,--"factories of the muses," in Lowell's expressive phrase,--stood forth in their naked practicality much as they stand to-day. Lawrence Hall library, in its earlier, wingless character of colossal ink-pot, Jackson Hall[2] and the little magnetic observatory, still standing, completed the catalogue of the college buildings.

The faculty of that day can be recalled without difficulty: President Hopkins, whose clear and venerable name no eulogy of mine shall here disfigure; his stern-faced but great-hearted brother Albert; Emmons the geologist; Griffin, Tatlock, Lincoln, and Chadbourne, who succeeded Hopkins in the presidency; Bascom, the only survivor to-day, and Perry, the best-known of them all. I have taken no pains to refresh my memory of the faculty of 1856, but I am confident that here are no omissions. It will be somewhat less easy for undergraduates to-day, writing so many eventful years after their entrance, to recall the names of their teachers. One only of our memorable nine is now in service, and long may he serve the community! All these were ranked as professors; there had been tutors and instructors before our days, but none in our time.

The _Gul_ of those days was a four-page sheet containing in briefest form the members.h.i.+p and official lists of the various fraternities and a.s.sociations; it sold for ten cents a copy. The only other college publication was the _Quarterly_, a solid magazine of about one hundred pages. None of the fraternities then existing, I think, possessed a chapter-house; their rooms were in more or less obscure quarters, over stores or in private houses. There was quite as much rivalry between them then as now, and poorer spirit. There was also an Anti-Secret Confederation, of which General Garfield in his time was the leader; it mixed freely in college politics and was no less clannish than the other fraternities. The absence of chapter-houses and the less fully developed social life of the fraternities left room for a stronger cla.s.s feeling and perhaps a more sympathetic college spirit than exists to-day. The smallness of the cla.s.ses and the absence of the electives, too, aided the cultivation of cla.s.s feeling; the cla.s.ses ranged from forty-five to sixty, and the whole cla.s.s was held solidly together during the whole course, all reciting in the same room three times a day from the beginning of freshman year to the end of senior.

College singing was hearty and spirited, but our repertoire was limited. I recall many evenings of blameless hilarity on the benches under the trees in front of East College. For more ambitious musical performance we had our "Mendelssohn Society," whose concerts were not probably so cla.s.sical as we then esteemed them, but whose rehearsals gave us not a little pleasure. Athletics had hardly a name to live.

Now and then a football was mysteriously dropped into the West College yard, and kicked about in a very promiscuous fas.h.i.+on; the freshmen and soph.o.m.ores generally had a match of what was by courtesy called base-ball. The only intercollegiate contest of which I had any recollection, and as it seems the first ever to take place, was a ball game at Pittsfield between Williams and Amherst. Amherst was the challenging party, and the college by vote selected its team with much care and went forth to the contest with strong hopes. The game was not lacking in excitement. It was none of your new-fangled, umpire-ridden matches: the modern type of base-ball had not, of course, been invented. Foul b.a.l.l.s were unknown, the sphere could be knocked toward any quarter of the earth or sky; runners between bases could be pelted with it by any of the outfielders. I think that the score stood something like 60 to 40, and it was not in favor of Williams. It was a melancholy company that trailed homeward after this contest past the Lanesboro pond; but since then I understand that times have changed.

[Dr. Gladden has embodied his college reminiscences more fully in his recent volume _Recollections_, wherein is told also the story of "The Mountains." (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1909.)]

_Literary Monthly_, 1893.