Four Quarters Volume 7 Number 2 Four Quarters: January 1958 Vol. VII No. Article 1 2 1-1958 Four Quarters: January 1958 Vol. VII, No. 2 Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/fourquarters Recommended Citation (1958) "Four Quarters: January 1958 Vol. VII, No. 2," Four Quarters: Vol. 7 : No. 2 , Article 1. Available at: http://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/fourquarters/vol7/iss2/1 This Complete Issue is brought to you for free and open access by the University Publications at La Salle University Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Four Quarters by an authorized editor of La Salle University Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. four Quarters The Way of the Year • Inside Cover A Poem by Frances De Vlieger Anderson The Ring • Page 1 A Story by Brother D. Adelbert, F.S.C. too Now • Page 6 A Poem by Beverly Terhune A Libretto in Original Verse • Page 7 A Musical Drama by Howard A, Wiley Existentialism in The Outsider • Page 17 An Essay by Charles I. Glicksberg An Evening with Robert Frost • Page 26 A Poem by Marion Montgomery Of Days • Page 27 A Poem by Samuel M. Sargent That There Shall Be a Countie-Greene • Page 28 A Ballad by Edith Garlow The Theatre • Page 32 A Poem by Beverly Terhune CCS January, 1938 . VII, no. 2 • fifty cents Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from Lyrasis IVIembers and Sloan Foundation http://www.archive.org/details/fourquarters91unse The Way of the Year • Frances De Vlieger Anderson Far in the dingle lush with April Vibrant with joy to warm the blood, A sudden stir A sudden blur Of white — then softly after. White feet that rose and fell and fled amid a Dryad's laughter! Deep in the azure realm of summer Enameled with gold of finches' wings, A mortal spell Unmans the will; And lost to the roses season. To stay is hfe though night be soon, to go — the path of treason. High where the hillsides* flaming maples Pubush the dearth of bee and rose. The haunting grace Of autumn's face Commands the heart: "Remember The fall of a leaf, in the fall of the year, the pahng of ember by ember.' Deaf to the wind when the wind cries "Havoc!" Bhnd to the glare of crystal storm, Tlie meadow mice Inherit ice In the wake of the hawk, their hunter; And dreamless, curl in velvet sleep through the crystal world of winter. The Ring • Brother D. Adelbert, F.S.C. FIRST she Keard mainly the and awaited the next sound, expect- ATscrabbling and whining of ing it, hearing it alone in her mind the dogs. Then like an added even before she heard it join with one of tbem, like another Wulf, she the wind. More hostile to her than thought, heavy-chested, unfriendly, the wind or the night, as hostile untamed, the wind joined voice. as what Hildric saw there in the She heard it first, then felt it. In the fire, it did not long delay its meet- hall the smoke quickly thinned, ing with her thought. She heard it drawn upw^ards through the roof- now, at first a muttering almost vent by its ally in the night. Chilled, within the wind, then the sullen, she arose and turned the greyed broken, persistent roar as it fought coals, carefully piling new w^ood, in mock rough and tumble with the split faggots, on and around them. wind over the rocky shelf of the As the splints took and the fire beach as over a veteran bone. closed over them in orange reds then The sea, which now intruded its blues, she saw more distinctly the voice on her ears, joined with the form and features of the man near less hostile voices of Wulf and the her there by the fire. other dogs, of the chill though April Though Hildric looked at the wind, of the usual fearful sounds of flames, she thought, he did not see the night, dominating them all, them. He did not hear the surly dominating her mind and her hope. wind nor feel it on his back nor did The sea was her real rival and a he hear the restless dogs outside. god, powerful. Repeatedly he had His eyes, his thoughts, half his heart torn from her those she had loved at least — let it not be more than most dearly. Some he had never half r-^ were many winds and nights returned. and miles away, and she was not He trod now upon the shore of there where they were. her thought. She spoke to him there. She returned to the foldstool and Twice you Jiave come between to the second nearly finished slipper my lom and me. Noiv a neiv time she had been beading. Doeskin he goes with. you. without, rabbit fur within, so The sea did not seem to be listen- stamiped and beaded and laced that ing. The flames on the burning he could wear them with pride be- splints grevv^ brighter and the shad- side the hearths of mightier lords, ows in the dim hall darker, sharper. they would warm his feet when she Do you plot to trap him in your could not in that distant land whose storms as you aid his father Hroth- mioors his thoughts already walked, ulf, the hoary-loched old man with his eyes already saw^ there in the fire. the rough cheeks and eyes lihe The w^ind's voice was louder now, lantern candles whom I loved also? more unfriendly still. She heard it The flames turned blue again. 1 Four Quarters Tlie sKadows moved more softly on an imperious answer, but they were tKe walls. Some of them played too loud, and they answered together with Hildric's Kair. Tlie sea con- as brother gods sometimes do, so tinued attending to its own affairs, she could not understand what they unheeding, irresponsible. said. He was ever kind to me, Hrothulf She began stitching the last row^ was, every day of my life since he of beads to the second slipper. These freely gave gold to huy me from the slippers Hildric vi'ould w^ear when fierce Saxons. he set forth in his ship, when he The sea spoke then, but he did walked the floors of distant halls. not speak distinctly, and a dog had Perhaps he will walk the same yapped, and she could not catch floor stones that I walked as a what the sea said. child, though it is little likely. One Still looking at the flames or does not hope for such gifts from through them, Hildric stirred rest- the gods. lessly. W/ien he journeyed across you You have also come between my before, you kept him from me over- mother and me, and now I do not long. The first time 1 bore it more know if she is living, as my lord easily, for I was only a child then. is, or if she is dead lihe Hrothulf. But last spring, the second time, The sea, she heard him distinctly after he had spoken for me and we now, spoke a riddle of two parts, but were betrothed, 1 was fearful he she was a land woman and could would never return. W/iy did you not unravel either one. keep him so long? Hildric leaned forward and took The sea confided something to a stick from the kindling basket. In the wind but did not answer her. the powdery white ash on the You are surely not a woman-god, hearth's edge he seemed to draw O Sea, for if you were, you would something, slowly, carefully. She have been as kind to me as Preya could not see from where she sat and not have saddened my wedding what it was. She added a red bead day with death-sorrow. You would to complete the row. have given back Hrothulf, but him We would have heen happy to- you closed in your chill grave, and gether, my mother and I, even though Hildric returned that day with no we were slaves, for the Tloman lord joy in his eyes, though our bridal of the villa was ever kind and just, bed awaited us. 1 remember, but you brought us the The pattern of her complaint was seafarers. Now I am here amongst ended as she completed the last file them, and my lord and husband is of beads on the second slipper. The a seafarer, and again you lure him sea v^^ithdrew from her mind. She to follow the others. took both slippers and looked at the The wind howled at the dogs, finished designs. Sun runes and commanding them. He, Neorth, was star runes gleamed before her in also a god. beads of red and green. They would Wi?? you return him to me as you keep the fiends of cold and damp- did before, or wiU you keep him ness from piercing her lord's feet as you did my mother and Hrothulf? with their pain spears. To strengthen Both the sea and the wind spoke the runes she now^ whispered over The Ring the slippers the cKarm she nad and unlocking a door. "Draw a learned from the great lady in the flagon of mead, and mind you let hall of the Lord Aesh, where she it not o'erflow the brim." had been bred to noble life. Bend- She took the candle from him and ing over, she brushed them with held it close overhead while he the breath of the magic words, fumbled for the cock on the huge tun set into the wall.