The Weber Literary Journal A Vision By Ruth Stuart LONE I stood on the hillside and watched as the earth with assurance turned my kingdom away from the rays of the old sun. Oft I had watched for the sunset. Now, expecting no more than the daily farewell of the sun, I looked well content o'er the valley. Feathery, sturdy and graceful, the trees, resembling the works of Old Masters, outlined with delicate witchery the fringe of the western sky. Behind them the sun, blood red and blinding, hung suspended as the earth must have hung in the days of its infancy. Clouds lying low in long rifts near tie redness were most softly colored as with tints from the dead flowers of earth which into the sky had ascended and, not needed for rainbows, had remained in the sunset. The poppy red, poppy gold and liquid green the fair clouds grew. Of a sudden, long streamers invaded the crown of the bound sky. Color sifted into the bowl as the paints of a painter pour into the bowl of his painting. Clouds yellow as the crocus in springtime, pink as the boles of a conch shell, in colors unnamed and unnumbered swirled in mad abandon from one distant rim to the other. Broken lakes on the floor of the valley took to themselves a small part of the glory of heaven and glowed as the opals of India. The beauty of the scene indescribable clutched at my heart as does music created immortal, hurting with a pain most exquisite. Forms and the tints of things, a divine heritage, were lost as I followed them with bewitched eyesight. Memories they left me for consolation. Slowly the mountains surrounded themselves in pink, in the purple of dusk and the azure of morning. Silent they rose and were human to me. They were wise, for living through ages they knew all and had seen all. Good they were, for the Lord has said the earth was good and deserving of glory. With a bit of disdain they gathered themselves from the homes of hard toiling intruders. Patient with such desecration they were, knowing well from experience that things of men should pass 22 The Weber Literary Journal soon and leave them at peace with the things of their mother. Then, meeting in radiant embrace, the rays of the sun and the tops of the mountains arose and in unison held their communion with God. Breathless, bewildered, I saw the sacrament of the mountains. Youth By Marguerite Williamson How soon the time that leaves our youth behind Steals on and leaves us old and worn with age; The hasting days fly on without a pause And our sweet youth is writ in history's page. Perhaps our spirits could deceive cruel Time And we might keep our youth so dear; Perhaps our pleadings might have weight If time would only give us ear! It may not be? Then all must pass? The age of joy and the golden dream? Time leads us through smile and tear; Youth soon is dead; Life rules supreme. 23