| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Passionate Pilgrim by William Shakespeare: And drives away dark dismal-dreaming night:
The night so pack'd, I post unto my pretty;
Heart hath his hope, and eyes their wished sight;
Sorrow changed to solace, solace mix'd with sorrow;
For why, she sigh'd and bade me come tomorrow.
Were I with her, the night would post too soon;
But now are minutes added to the hours;
To spite me now, each minute seems a moon;
Yet not for me, shine sun to succour flowers!
Pack night, peep day; good day, of night now borrow:
Short, night, to-night, and length thyself
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane: dusty figures were made plain by this quaint
139
light at the dawning, but it dressed the skin of
the men in corpselike hues and made the tangled
limbs appear pulseless and dead. The youth
started up with a little cry when his eyes first
swept over this motionless mass of men, thick-
spread upon the ground, pallid, and in strange
postures. His disordered mind interpreted the
hall of the forest as a charnel place. He believed
for an instant that he was in the house of the
The Red Badge of Courage |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Prufrock/Other Observations by T. S. Eliot: I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
Portrait of a Lady
Thou hast committed--
Prufrock/Other Observations |
