thletics had hardly a name to live.
Now and then a football was mysteriously dropped into the West College
yard, and kicked about in a very promiscuous fashion; the freshmen and
sophomores generally had a match of what was by courtesy called
base-ball. The only intercollegiate contest of which I had any
recollection, and as it seems the first ever to take place, was a ball
game at Pittsfield between Williams and Amherst. Amherst was the
challenging party, and the college by vote selected its team with much
care and went forth to the contest with strong hopes. The game was not
lacking in excitement. It was none of your new-fangled, umpire-ridden
matches: the modern type of base-ball had not, of course, been
invented. Foul balls were unknown, the sphere could be knocked toward
any quarter of the earth or sky; runners between bases could be pelted
with it by any of the outfielders. I think that the score stood
something like 60 to 40, and it was not in favor of Williams. It was a
melancholy company that trailed homeward after this contest past the
Lanesboro pond; but since then I understand that times have changed.

[Dr. Gladden has embodied his college reminiscences more fully in his
recent volume _Recollections_, wherein is told also the story of "The
Mountains." (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1909.)]

_Literary Monthly_, 1893.

[Footnote 1: October, 1893.]

[Footnote 2: Demolished in 1908.]

TO THE MOUNTAINS OF WILLIAMSTOWN

ON THE INTRODUCTION OF THE NEW RAILROAD

ANON.

Ye guardian mountains of the western world,
Enthroned like monarchs of primeval days!
Ye that hold lofty converse with the stars,
And bind your shaggy brows with clustering clouds
As if with wreaths of laurel! ye that count
Your years by thousands, and your bosoms robe
With all the pageantry of Autumn's gold,
And lull your sleep of ages with the wild
And murmurous drone of woodland waterfalls,
And multitudinous song of windy groves!

What spell hath bound ye now? what lethargy
O'ercomes your ancient power? that undisturbed
Ye slumber on, as if ye heeded not
The piercing shriek from yonder fuming car,
Which saith that even here presumptuous man
Has dared intrude upon the green domain,
Which ye inherited when Time was born.
Awake! arise! are ye forever dumb?
Let Greylock, most majestic of your band,
Stand up and shout aloud to Audubon,
Until from peak to peak the sound rolls round,
Until