| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: prophecy could never be fulfilled, because they imagine such a
thing would never happen in our climate.
From Town of Stoffe, etc. This is a plain designation of the Duke
of Marlborough: One kind of stuff used to fatten land is called
marle, and every body knows that borough is a name for a town;
and this way of expression is after the usual dark manner of old
astrological predictions.
Then shall the Fyshe, etc. By the fish, is understood the Dauphin
of France, as their kings eldest sons are called: 'Tis here said,
he shall lament the loss of the Duke of Burgundy, called the
Bosse, which is an old English word for hump-shoulder, or
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu: Beneath her marriage-veil of mysteries.
LIFE
Children, ye have not lived, to you it seems
Life is a lovely stalactite of dreams,
Or carnival of careless joys that leap
About your hearts like billows on the deep
In flames of amber and of amethyst.
Children, ye have not lived, ye but exist
Till some resistless hour shall rise and move
Your hearts to wake and hunger after love,
And thirst with passionate longing for the things
|
