| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: the woman, who was groping for the latch of the door.
"No."
"No? Where's Kit Small, then?"
"Begorra! on the spools. Alleys behint, though we helped her,
we dud. An wid ye! Let Deb alone! It's ondacent frettin' a
quite body. Be the powers, an we'll have a night of it!
there'll be lashin's o' drink,--the Vargent be blessed and
praised for't!"
They went on, the mulatto inclining for a moment to show fight,
and drag the woman Wolfe off with them; but, being pacified, she
staggered away.
 Life in the Iron-Mills |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Paradise Lost by John Milton: Since, by descending from the thrones above,
Those happy places thou hast deigned a while
To want, and honour these, vouchsafe with us
Two only, who yet by sovran gift possess
This spacious ground, in yonder shady bower
To rest; and what the garden choicest bears
To sit and taste, till this meridian heat
Be over, and the sun more cool decline.
Whom thus the angelick Virtue answered mild.
Adam, I therefore came; nor art thou such
Created, or such place hast here to dwell,
 Paradise Lost |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Children of the Night by Edwin Arlington Robinson: Under red roses. Red they bloomed and fell;
But when flushed autumn and the snows went by,
And spring came, -- lo, from every bud's green shell
Burst a white blossom. -- Can love reason why?
Horace to Leuconoe
I pray you not, Leuconoe, to pore
With unpermitted eyes on what may be
Appointed by the gods for you and me,
Nor on Chaldean figures any more.
'T were infinitely better to implore
The present only: -- whether Jove decree
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