| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Flame and Shadow by Sara Teasdale: The heavy-headed asters, the late roses
And swaying hollyhocks.
For at high-noon I heard from this same garden
The far-off murmur as when many come;
Up from the village surged the blind and beating
Red music of a drum;
And the hysterical sharp fife that shattered
The brittle autumn air,
While they came, the young men marching
Past the village square. . . .
Across the calm Connecticut the hills change
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad: Sterne had taken heart of grace meantime.
"And the silly insurance people too, as well," he said
lightly. "But never mind that. What I want to ask
is: Why shouldn't _I_ do, sir? I don't say but you could
take a steamer about the world as well as any of us
sailors. I don't pretend to tell YOU that it is a very
great trick . . ." He emitted a short, hollow guffaw,
familiarly . . . "I didn't make the law--but there it
is; and I am an active young fellow! I quite hold with
your ideas; I know your ways by this time, Mr. Massy.
I wouldn't try to give myself airs like that--that--er
End of the Tether |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Georgics by Virgil: Stiff clings the jagged icicle. Meanwhile
All heaven no less is filled with falling snow;
The cattle perish: oxen's mighty frames
Stand island-like amid the frost, and stags
In huddling herds, by that strange weight benumbed,
Scarce top the surface with their antler-points.
These with no hounds they hunt, nor net with toils,
Nor scare with terror of the crimson plume;
But, as in vain they breast the opposing block,
Butcher them, knife in hand, and so dispatch
Loud-bellowing, and with glad shouts hale them home.
Georgics |
