| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare: And on thy well-breath'd horse keep with thy hound.
'And when thou hast on foot the purblind hare,
Mark the poor wretch, to overshoot his troubles 680
How he outruns the winds, and with what care
He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles:
The many musits through the which he goes
Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes. 684
'Sometime he runs among a flock of sheep,
To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell,
And sometime where earth-delving conies keep,
To stop the loud pursuers in their yell, 688
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: and the red-wing, as if the last flakes of winter tinkled as they
fell! What at such a time are histories, chronologies, traditions,
and all written revelations? The brooks sing carols and glees to
the spring. The marsh hawk, sailing low over the meadow, is already
seeking the first slimy life that awakes. The sinking sound of
melting snow is heard in all dells, and the ice dissolves apace in
the ponds. The grass flames up on the hillsides like a spring fire
-- "et primitus oritur herba imbribus primoribus evocata" -- as if
the earth sent forth an inward heat to greet the returning sun; not
yellow but green is the color of its flame; -- the symbol of
perpetual youth, the grass-blade, like a long green ribbon, streams
Walden |
