CULTIVATOR

T HAT rare man, a born teacher and unforgettable human be- ing, is celebrated in Cultiva-tor. John Holmes wrote the poem in tribute to his friend and faculty colleague, Myron J. Files 'l4, Goldthwaite Pro- fessor of Rhetoric at Tufts College. To the teaching of American literature, modest, hard-working Professor Files brings a special blend of quali- ties that marks him as one of those wise and human Yankee teachers New England some- times produces and always de- lights in.

Beyond his academic work, Professor Files enjoys some farming on his place at Appleton, in his native state of Maine. When he retires he plans to settle there and dig in his garden to his heart's content, with time out now and then for trips to the nearby coast. Some measure of his philosophy is contained in his half-humorous proposal for a modern curriculum: "Teach enough physics so that when we get atomized we'll know what happened, enough history so that we'll know why it happened, and enough philosophy and religion so that we'll have the benefit of any consolation there may be."

Cultivator will appear in John Holmes' new book of poems, The Symbols, sched- uled for publication early in 1952. Associate Professor of English at Tufts College, Holmes was one of the poets invited to read their works in the Tower Room in Baker Library last spring.

HE could have run a brookside mill, A barny building, three old men Working a twenty-foot soaked wheel That dribbles out but drinks in Power to turn one shaft, to tool

From country woods to wood a wooden Use—bowl, dowel, or helve— And happy there have been warden Of such work and words, and selve Himself, hoeing a nearby garden.

He could have raised apples, lived Up ladders in a mist of spray, Cursing the lost, boxing up the saved, Washing apple's many enemies away. He did. To prove it can be proved.

But his farming runs in and over And out from book to brook to apple And back again, till to discover Emerson among the Baldwins, tell people Apart from trees, is a leaf-dapple

In New England sunlight, names, names Of listeners flickering in fields Of pages of chairs of classrooms. Little by little the orchard yields, Though the good shoulder lames.

He pounds in handy home-made pegs To hold down larger transcendensions. Not one to set up famous flags, He is an explorer of five dimensions, But needs more north for his own legs.

Hungry for green, he sees ground-pine Springing up underfoot, smells it, Smiles, makes mystic Melville plain, Sits Dreiser by Franklin on fence-rails, And wonders what century he's in.

Now in his hale middle years he shouts A huge joy from a ridge in Maine, Buried in blueberries. The tax abates Where a man's brush and bushes are his own It is his levy, not the state's.

On his own bones he pays, and glad to. Hear him wake up the standing timber, Joking or drawling his Thoreau or God. He moves, he mills log and lumber, Lecturing to build citizen-head.

Where autumn's red, and spring's red In some of the green, and the water-wheel Pushes when the stream is full, he could Have run a brookside mill, and did. His lathe has grained the grain of wood.

THOREAU MACDONALD