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Kansas University Weekly.
LITERARY.
Tell me gentle traveller, thou Who hast wandered far and wide Seen the sweetest roses blow. And the fairest rivers glide Say, of all thine eyes have seen Which the fairest land has been?
Lady, shall I tell thee where Nature seems most blest and fair, Far above all climes beside? 'Tis where those we love abide; And that little spot is best Which the loved one's foot has pressed. Saâdi.
When first, on mother's breast a helpless child I saw thee weep, while all around thee smiled. So live that, sinking to thy last long sleep, Calm thou may't smile, while all around thee weep.
Hafiz.
Yet Ah, that spring should vanish with the Rose! That Youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close!
The nightingale that in the branches sang, Ah whence, and whither flown again, who knows?
Would but the desert of the fountain yield One glimpse, if dimly, yet indeed, revealed, To which the fainting traveller might spring, As springs the trampeled herbage of the field!
Would but some winged Angel ere too late Arrest the yet unfolded roll of fate And make the stern Recorder otherwise Enregister, or quite obliterate!
Ah Love! could you and I with him conspire To group this sorry scheme of things entire, Would not we shatter it to bits—and there Remould it nearer to the hearts desire!
Oh threats of Hell and hopes of Paradise! One thing at least is certain—This life flies; One thing is certain and the rest is lies, The flower that once has blown for ever dies.
Whether at Naichapter or Babylon,
Whether the cup with sweet or bitter run,
The wine of life keeps oozing, drop by drop,
The leaves of life keep falling, one by one.
RUBAIGOT OF OMAR KHAYYAM.
Letter to an Undergraduate.
The busy piping of the meadowlarks in our backgarden, and the green tinge of the hillsides, yellowish now because the grass leaves are thin and scattering over the dead growth of last season, but getting greener every day, suggest a looking over of my out-of-doors books. The beginning of a new year of plant and bird and insect life is a very fit time for such a pleasant business. But the Kansas Campus isn't growing greener, and is growing browner? And the birds are gone and the insects dead? Then so much fitter the time for turning to books remindful of green grass and bird song, that we may not forget quite that all the year is not December time.
My neighbor of the adjoining bachelor's rooms doesn't like out-of-doors books. I do. You may not, and your chum may. It is a good deal in taste, and some deal from acquaintanceship that we like the sort of reading we do like. If your tastes are not too thoroughly real to preclude their being influenced by other men's likes and dislikes; or if you are not yet wholly reserved for Pope and Ben Jonson, make just a trial of a Burroughs chapter or a Mowgli tale. You may find it what you have been feeling for, or you may not. The Mowgli tale will win you; perhaps because of its adventure; perhaps for its wolfboy more boy than wolf, or for its greatness of story-telling style; but if you like the Burroughs talk of bees and birds, then you are in mood and inclination to find refreshment and lively pleasure in the writings of half a dozen present day American nature lovers. Bradford Forrey, Olive Miller, Maurice Thompson, Frank Bolles ad er company, are names probably little