| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Enoch Arden, &c. by Alfred Tennyson: At times a carven craft would shoot
From havens hid in fairy bowers,
With naked limbs and flowers and fruit,
But we nor paused for fruit nor flowers.
VIII.
For one fair Vision ever fled
Down the waste waters day and night,
And still we follow'd where she led,
In hope to gain upon her flight.
Her face was evermore unseen,
And fixt upon the far sea-line;
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The House of Dust by Conrad Aiken: Joseph was dead, his wife and children starving.
Elaine was married and soon to have a child.
You dreamed last night of fiddler-crabs with fiddles;
They played a buzzing melody, and you smiled.
To-morrow--what? And what of yesterday?
Through soundless labyrinths of dream you pass,
Through many doors to the one door of all.
Soon as it's opened we shall hear a music:
Or see a skeleton fall . . .
We walk with you. Where is it that you lead us?
We climb the muffled stairs beneath high lanterns.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu: Etruria, two thousand years ago. Did I say dead? No, for the
gods are immortal, and one might still find them loitering in
some solitary dell on the grey hillsides of Fiesole. Have I seen
them? Yes, looking with dreaming eyes, I have found them sitting
under the olives, in their grave, strong, antique
beauty--Etruscan gods!"
In Italy she watches the faces of the monks, and at one moment
longs to attain to their peace by renunciation, longs for
Nirvana; "then, when one comes out again into the hot sunshine
that warms one's blood, and sees the eager hurrying faces of men
and women in the street, dramatic faces over which the disturbing
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