Opium Drum By Van Nance The poppy's fragrance I inhale once more, The blessed fragrance of forgetfulness. In torpid stupor slowly toward the floor I sink, and yield myself to Morpheus. I rise and try to walk, but all in vain. The emerald substance clings about my knees. I look below, and see through misty rain A marble temple, sheltered by pale trees. Inside the temple is a secret place Where fragrant incense burns, and Persian rugs Adorn the floors, where serpent women crawl To worship statues of pallid garden slugs. And if some wanderer, by chance, should come Into this place that sorcerers have made The serpent women come, with one cold kiss They change his warm, soft flesh to purest jade. Quite suddenly a Stygian blackness falls. I wander through the shadowy vales of Eternity. From afar comes a flickering of light Leading me slowly back to Reality. I wake with throbbing head, I cannot hear. The temple of the serpent women is gone. Beside me, his body reeking of drugs and beer, Lies a fool, whose opium dream is done. YESTERDAY By Faye McLatchie That was my home: Yesterday it stood Where now is left just Cinders and charred wood. That was my home: How still the ruins lie. Havoc wreaked on innocents By plane-infested sky. That was my yard: A gaping crater yawns. A symbol of mans madness, Of droning, steel-gray dawns. That was my son: An honored name is cleft On the stone that's everlasting A mound of earth is left. TO A SUCCESSFUL RIVAL By Joan Allred I think that you will walk with gentle lids Down-curving, and a seven-stringed lyre, When some celestial aftertime forbids Recall of conflict and our mortal fire; You'll stand with him cool sandalled in the place Where quickening stars break into amethyst, Haloed and chaste, with your dim angel's face Half smiling earthward through its tender mist. And then I think he'll start, and lift his head, And glance bewildered down that crystal peak Across the radiant ranks of dreaming dead, Unquiet shadow falling on his cheek He'll sense arising on that lucid air From some dark planet a faint smoke, and smell Some scent that will have wandered up from where I burn like wistful incense down in hell. MISS SCRIRULUS 1944 Since coeds of Weber have adopted the youngish clothes that adorn the average high schooler, the opinion is that sophistication and feminine attractiveness, popularly termed glamour, are lacking on our campus. Disguised by scuffed oxfords and short socks, skirts and sweaters, our type of glamour is usually hidden, but there is no doubt that the picture of Miss Scribulus on the opposite page proves that it is only hidden. Beverly Felt has been chosen to represent Weber's beauty because the majority of the Weber family name her as most deserving of the title. In earning the distinction, Bev disqualifies the popular belief that intelligence and beauty are not complimentary. Her name has acquired the habit of appearing on the college honor roll at the close of each quarter. A charming person, she skillfully displays her knowledge that tact and poise prove more valuable to the conversationalist that sarcasm and nervous anxiety. Her humor is school-girlish, open, and easy to catch; her wit is seldom of the subtle variety. Unassuming and unaffected, Beverly's beauty is admired by the most critical Weber coed, a rare thing among women. Her naturalness makes her beauty glow. If you are an interested gentleman, and if a gentleman, no doubt you are, Miss Tanner thinks of her as one of the best "good cooks" practicing amateur cookery in her classes, and the suit Bev modeled in a recent fashion show speaks of her ability to employ the needle to her advantage. When first she saw the finished photograph of herself, her expression was one of modest surprise. "It's not me," she exclaimed, and her expression changed the last pronoun to I. page twelve Beverly Felt, Miss Scribulus of 1944. page thirteen