TO BETELGEUSE

Prose Poem

(This poem is dedicated to the great star Betelgeuse, whose volume Professor Michelson of Chicago University discovered to be 27 million times that of our own sun.)

WALTER M. WOLFF

University of Nebraska

At last may we conceive thee in all they incomprehensible Majesty - Orion's Princethou resplendent Pearl of Infinity? So far remote in the silent Time and Space . . . and yet, thou are the FIRST to reveal to us thy vast expanse-O Betelgeuse! Thou super-orb of the Firmament!

Our own good sun is but a golden atom when of thee is thought or spoken - Betelgeuse! 'Tis but a spot of plastic fancy that EVEN THOU canst create within us for thou art so boundless in the Cosmic Sea . . . and yet, we may know that thou are there — yea, small or great to these our finite senses!

Within our feeble, futile Intellect thou hast kindled the mythopoeic flame; we seek to cast

vain words in praise of thee . . . but thou THOU art beyond the mortal sphere, O Star! May we call thee "Father" among the throbbing suns Celestial? But O Betelgeuse! Forgive our Mind's infirmities!

GENE DONALD

The Trysting

Princeton University

The Gray Ghost crouched by the old church wall,

Losing himself in the murky shade,

He crouched and watched by a hole in the wall,
He heard the roar and the high-pitched call
Of living men at barter and trade

Under the old stone wall.

His bony hand and his fleshless skull
Were rank with the scent of long closed graves,
But his restless eyes were bright and full,
And ceaselessly moved, with never a lull,
Scanning each face in the human waves,
Surging around the wall.

The old, the young, the lame and the blind,
Each held his shifting gaze for a space,
The sick, the strong, the weak in mind,
He watched go by in the piercing wind
That cut to the bone, but he held his place
Close by the old stone wall.

"I'll meet you there in the place you know,
Dear Heart," she smiled at the faith in his eyes.
With eager feet he paced to and fro
Snail-footed Time crept slow, too slow-
But she played him false, for all his sighs
Under the old church wall.

The church has fallen in crumbled heaps,
The wall is covered with tangled vines,
But the Gray Ghost still his vigil keeps,
From face to face his swift eye leaps,
Plying his quest through the human lines
Flowing around the wall.

HAZEL PEARSON

Fools

Boston University

Three sorts of fools there be in this great world,
If I mistake not. One of these must claim
Each man, but he may choose which one he

will.

The first is he who thinks that he is wise.

An amiable fool! I mark his silly grin

And self-complacent smirk. And yet how

harsh

He trumpets forth displeasure at the world
Because it laughs at him.

The second fool

Laments his folly, longing to be wise.
His vaguely flickering wisps of vagrant thought
He deems the steadfast glowing of the sun.
He yearns to think that mocking man applauds,
And then smiles wanly at the dear conceit
That all the world loves him because it smiles.

Three sorts of fools there be. The last am I,
Who choose to be a fool in all my ways.