The Threshold

MASOCHISM DENIED

I will have unquestioning obedience. But you can't say it now, so you're reasonable. And they're not.

You think too much.

They laugh—he laughs.

But he means it. You can see it behind the smile.

Morning run cold shower CE bulging muscles ten 'A's don't t

Sweat straight bat head down clean shave four 'A's don't stop

OP Oxbridge blues first marry good job breed more can't stop ..

No!

Too late to ask why, too bad.

My life, not yours, I can stop it.

Think you can fill up my time, stop me thinking, work it out of me.

You can't!

Hypocrisy. Structured creativity, broad mindedness in the proper spheres, sound base of discipline, traditions.

The dangerous drug originality . .. thinking habits with

Insidious and uncontrolled results.

Cannot but take a serious view ... thinking or thunkenness (For a limited period only . . . our 627 Vintage Thought) And he moans and he moans--to those who don't matter. But I suppose when we're square We must blame someone,

A sheepish grin

Mustn't we?

Douglas Williamson IV A

THE ROOM

Paint smeared air, jam-jars full of murky water, and bits and pieces all over, this to me is the art studio.

This one single room is a hive of activity where people sit dawdling with paint on paper or scribble furiously on a sheet of coarse-grained paper with a pencil which has been hacked to bits with a pen-knife.

Here also several masterpieces are produced by rather odd-looking people. Squat sixth-formers and lanky boys at the other end of the School sit perched on a chair or table, crouching over small pieces of paper or staring at an engine long-since stopped.

The modern tables with "war-wounds" of paint and glue stand roughly in order, not that many people are bothered about order in this room re-named Bedlam.

The Master that struts around in here must be mad according to his pupils. He sometimes runs, throws, leaps about and hits people with their work, while at other times he may as well be a dead hamster lying prone in the bottom of its cage. 42

The walls are plastered with hand paintings and display-boards. People paint crude and refined pictures, show a train pulling out of a station, describe a flower or face in a few simple lines and all of them are here on those boards in a multicoloured frieze "Art", they say, "is a way of describing yourself", and this room describes everything possible in every possible manner, from posters to models. Everything in this room is a creation of man, and is admired by men.

The broken skulls and clocks lie scattered, like corn in a field, around the room. Some are covered with a fine dust while others are swamped in it, after having lain hidden from prying eyes and hands in locked cupboards. These innumerable objects are described by one ungainly word—models. Surely something better could he thought of and yet I suppose it would be very hard to think of a word as intricate as the objects themselves.

And at the end of each day as the night draws on there is still one lonely boy sitting here amongst the organised disorder, dreaming of a picture in his mind so exquisite it would be impossible to put on to paper. And even he must leave, and when he is gone a small glow appears around every brush, tube of paint, table, model, drawing, print, and even the humble pencil joins in that well timed "Dance of the Studio", and we return to our deadly dull 9 to 5 o'clock routine of the tense "outside". J. E. Hirst, III BI * * *

THE FINAL ESCAPE

An old hermit sat with dreamy thoughts, Silently sifting useless memories. He gazed over the barren wasteland That was his life. Had it been one futile rebellion? His sudden tiredness, His broken spirit escaping From a mass of profanity. As he surveyed his soul A divine faltering came into his thoughts. He lay down silently, prayed. And knew the ultimate freedom. C. W. A. Ashurst, 4B

TRENCHES ON THE MADRID FRONT

(Some thoughts inspired by "Memorias de la Guerra Civil") A solitary line of earth separates us, But we are far apart. To reach you, a lifetime. Strange roads, strange beaches. Yet, nevertheless, hostile brothers, How close our blood. 43

You, who were once at my side On the same playground swing, Why do you hide yourself away In the dusky April evening Like a sinister menace? You, carpenter who opened our door, Engineer of my summer train, Bellringer of Sunday mornings . . . But when victory is reaped in The wheatsheafs of our fields We will meet again, on the plains by the Manzanares. Richard Coates, 4C

Fragment: I SAW HIS ROUND MOUTH'S CRIMSON... by Wilfred Owen

I saw his round mouth's crimson deepen as it fell, Like a Sun, in his last deep hour; Watched the magnificent secession of farewell, Clouding, half gleam, half glower, And a last splendour burn the heavens of his cheek. And in his eyes The cold stars lighting, very old and bleak, In different skies.

An Appreciation

I think this is a very clever poem, as in no line does it say that it is about a soldier dying. It is a descriptive poem, but not obviously. You can tell it is about a soldier being shot and a man watching him die, feeling helpless to stop it, just watching. The poet describes in the I first line that he could see the blood coming from the man's mouth. He uses an analogy to describe this in the second line: "Like a sun, in his last deep hour. . ."

I believe that before the comma, Owen was saying that the man resembled the sun but after the comma, he is referring to the man; that is the man being in his last deep hour, but Owen has chosen his words well, in that the second clause of the line is an ambiguous clause, either referring to the man or to the sun. Throughout the entire poem everything has double meaning. The dying man is a personification of the sun going down, leaving darkness again in the poem. When the soldier is shot, his body goes in to darkness as the sun (life) he possessed drains from him as he dies. So does the earth die as the sun disappears over the horizon. In the third line, "Watched the magnificent recession of farewell. . ." this again refers both to the man and the sun. In the fourth line, the man clouds over as life is flowing away. The sun goes down like his 45