Poetry

This five stanza poem by W.P.S. demonstrates his sadness when Miss Lillian Sara Marvel, the first female law student at the College, does not return his advances.

"Alas! the world has gone away / Since Lillian entered college, / For she has grown so learned, I / Oft tremble at her wonderous  knowledge. / When'er I dare to woo her now / She frowns that I should so annoy her , / And then proclaims, with lofty brow, / Her mission is to be a lawyer."

 The November 1893 Dickinsonian about Co-education from the Yale Courant. Ridiculing intellectual students who spend their time looking for the facts about love in books, the poet suggests that they now take advantage of co-education, which would provide many more answers to this life-long question of love.

" You have a key now to the situation , / To learn of love just try Co-education."

Cornelia B. White (Class of 1907), writes a limerick for The Salmagundi, a literary publication by the Harman Literary Society. The limerick is of, but what else, the Harman Literary Society. She praises how the society is "composed of some twenty maids charmin'...their knowledge was something alarmin'."

The February 1889 issue of the Dickinsonian documents the occurrence that the co-ed bench was vandalized in the lecture room. The "muse of poetry" had paid a visit to Dickinson and wrote a poem on the bench about the co-eds. The poem states that "this is where they [co-eds] sit: They always want to go ahead, and won't be left a bit...they always are just right...and give the class much light."`

The 1910 Microcosm publishes this song titled the "Lloyd Hall Alma Mater" for the ladies who reside in the women's dormitory. The song's main theme is about bells and how they are found in all aspects of women's lives. From calling bells to door bells to wedding church bells, their life is "beginning and ending with bells."

"The Night Before Prayer Day" is a humorous poem about the women's decision not to have male escorts to the Prayer Day event, causing quite an uproar on campus. In support of the Women's Suffrage Movement, the co-eds of the class of 1910 decided to escort themselves to Prayer Day, which is scandalous to not be escorted to the church by a male. The male students were trying to force the women to be escorted by them, but instead the women declared that, "We'll leave for the church at half-past ten, but walk with those brutes? O, never again!"

"The Co-Eds, Et Al." is a humorous poem on how co-education changes education in the law school. These women who are studying to become lawyers alongside the men cause them to study and work hard to impress them. Unfortunately for them, the women there are not striving to win a man, but "rather to have a professional name." The poem then goes on to praise each of the five women who are studying law with them and wishes them the best of luck in the future.

An untitled poem in the 1908 Microcosm discusses how springtime means opportunity for the men of Dickinson College. The springtime turns a young man's fancy to "thoughts of the co-ed hall." Outside of the hall the men will linger "like a bee about the hive, waiting for the honeyed sweetness of the honey-comb inside." These are the "supposed" daily occurrences of the men in springtime at Dickinson College.

"A Tight Place" is a poem written about what a man will do for a fellow "inmate of Lloyd Hall" that he has feelings for. Wanting to grab her attention, the man asks her if she can make good fudge. The woman agreed to make some, so long as the man bought her all the supplies needed. Unfortunately for the man, he realized that he had no money in his pockets, being that he was in his Sunday clothes. Kindly, a fellow female friend lent him the money needed, rather than one of his male friends. The man successfully bought all the necessary items, and the girl never found out about his plight.

"To Mrs. McAnney" is a poem published in the 1907 Microcosm about the woman who watches over the females in their housing. According to the poet, these co-eds are "seldom happy, unless they're with a boy." In order to see these co-eds though, the men have to keep Mrs. McAnney happy when they are at the "Hen Roost" for she will always "treat them square."