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Illinois Verse/Senior Hobo Parade

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4364819Illinois Verse — Senior Hobo ParadeAnna Shattuck Palmer
Senior Hobo Parade
Shrill and loud above the beating of the drums,
Syncopated,—jazz music urges the heterogeneous rabble
Down Burrill Avenue and back to the Auditorium
Tattered and torn,
  Blackened and painted,
On they come to make a ludicrous spectacle
For the Homecoming masses.

Dignified seniors have shed academic pride
With their customary conventional clothes.
Weary Willies and Dusty Rhoades mix
With strenuous Wild Bills and competing clowns
Jaywalkers and awkward hay-seeds;—All stirred into one
Highly colored,
Shifting throng.
Swerving and tumbling about with savage glee
Or infantile joy, they play their various pranks
To win the plaudits of the laughing crowds.

  Final high carnival,
   Last dashing gesture
To end the careless gaiety of their college days,
And enter upon the dignity of the senior year.