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 god, 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 hoary 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 passes life. As hoary 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 Passover;
  We happy twain, a wayward maid,
    A careless, gay philosopher;
  But unto me she seems a Venus
  And Paphian grasses nod between us.

  Her drooping eyelids half conceal
    A vague, uncertain mystery;
  Her tender glances half reveal
    A sad, impassioned 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 shaggy 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 classic plains,
    And drink the noblest 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

WASHINGTON 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 class 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 Sophomores 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