I won't wait to be "shut off," but bring to an abrupt close the reminiscences of An Old Boy.

QUILLDRIVER.

TO MECENAS.

Mæcenas, friend and patron mine,
Descended from a regal line,-
The charioteer who turns the goal
With burning wheels that upward roll
Olympic dust in moving cloud,

Is worshiped by the cheering crowd,
And, home returning, laurel-crowned,
Is ever as a god renowned.

And some, by fickle Romans praised,
Are thrice to public office raised,
While other men at home remain,
Content to thresh the garnered grain
And reap from Lybian threshing-floor,
For time of need, a plenteous store.
Rejoicing in paternal lands,
No hope of gain on foreign strands
Can tempt the peasant e'er to brave
In staunchest ship the stormy wave.

When storm-blasts rage with fury blind,
The sea-tossed merchant lists the wind
And wistful thinks of home,-the peace
And calm to come when storms shall cease.
His shattered ships scarce overhauled,

His seamen once again are called

To spread the sails and cross the main,

In foreign lands to seek for gain.

The jovial man does not decline
The cup of ancient Massic wine,
Altho' full well he knows the cost
Is precious hours of morning lost.
Or now beneath the greenwood trees
At full length stretched he takes his ease,
Or lying near some sacred spring
He lists the gentle murmuring.

And when the brazen trumpet rings
The warrior's heart within him sings,
Tho' wars for which the heroes thirst
By weeping mothers are accursed.
Beneath the frosty winter skies,
Unmindful of his loved one's sighs,
The hunter traps the foaming boar
Or starts the stag on distant shore.

But if to me Euterpe deign

To grant the flute for simpler strain,
It Polyhymnia will fire

With song inspired my Lesbian lyre,

The ivy crown, the poet's meed,
Will to the gods my footsteps lead

Thro' sylvan forest, cool and green,

Where no base throng disturbs the scene,

Where songs of nymphs and satyrs rude
Alone awake the solitude.

And if Mæcenas do but praise

My feeble song, and rank my lays

With theirs who best attuned the lyre,

No higher tribute I desire.

JOHN KEATING, '03.

A NOVEMBER DAY DREAM.

It was a bleak chilly afternoon in November. Who does not know what a November afternoon is at Holy Cross, when the wind goes wailing like a living thing among the naked trees and dying away in hollow murmurs through the leaf-bestrewn upper terrace. My room was as cheerful as May. A fire in the grate cast a genial warmth through the room. The light from the sombre sky stole in through the heavy curtains, casting a crimson shade over everything-over the soft carpet, the polished chairs and table. I sat there with a Russo opened before me, but my thoughts were far away. A mellowed feeling of sadness had come over me at the thought that one is only a fleeting figure amid scenes now so familiar to him; that as others before me had filled out their allotted span and departed, leaving only the faintest traces of their sojourn, so I, succeeding to the labors and occupations which they had laid aside forever, like them must pass away and be known no more where I am now known so well, and leave to future times memorials of myself, hardly less fleeting than the recollections of surviving friends. What wonder that my imagination should wander fancy free, as I gazed at the open door of the old wardrobe which had come down to me from generations of Holy Cross men, each taking good care to leave his mark

upon it. It is not strange that under such circumstances my imagination should carry me far away from Russo and Major Logic. I thought of all the occupants of this room whose names were writ large on the wardrobe door, and wondered if they were youths to Fortune and to Fame unknown. Those students who once occupied this room are to-day, if living, engrossed in the different callings and stations of life, and scattered over the face of the globe. As I look with fear, desire and hope to the future, so did they. They too, perhaps, while here, wove prismatic fancies as brilliant as the rainbow-perhaps as evanescent. They too, perhaps, now advanced in life, returning some day to visit the old place, may look with a kind of subdued sadness upon their successors. Thus I shall come back on what will be to me the long ago. I shall think of the many classmates scattered, perhaps departed, who, having crossed the tide of life when it was narrow, clear and deep, now cast their brightness from the farther side. F. J. L.

LIFE.

Oh, life is a mountain, my heart murmured sadly,
And up its steep height youth rapidly wends
Its venturesome course so joyfully, gladly,
Only to weep as in age it descends.

J. M.

TO MY PIPE.

I love thee, social friend!

Though I'm told it is not right;
As thy curling wreaths ascend
They fill me with delight.

In evening's lonely hour,
Unattended but by thee,

As o'er the odes I pore,

Man's fate in thee I see.

As the flame that warms thy bowl
Forsakes the cold, gray embers,

In life's sad close, the soul

Will leave the cherished members.

JOSEPH SCULLY, '03.