| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson: she'll be your guardian and shield.
Lullaby, slumber, my darling, till morning be
bright upon mountain and field.
Long, long the shadows fall.
All white and smooth at home your little bed is laid.
All round your head be angels.
EARLY IN THE MORNING I HEAR ON YOUR PIANO
EARLY in the morning I hear on your piano
You (at least, I guess it's you) proceed to learn to play.
Mostly little minds should take and tackle their piano
While the birds are singing in the morning of the day.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pericles by William Shakespeare: Lysimachus our Tyrian ship espies,
His banners sable, trimm'd with rich expense;
And to him in his barge with fervour hies.
In your supposing once more put your sight
Of heavy Pericles; think this his bark:
Where what is done in action, more, if might,
Shall be discover'd; please you, sit and hark.
[Exit.]
SCENE I. On board Pericles' ship, off Mytilene. A close pavilion
on deck, with a curtain before it; Pericles within it, reclined
on a couch. A barge lying beside the Tyrian vessel.
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin: at length, in one of the British Reviews, from a discourse
of Dr. Foster's. This detection gave many of our party disgust,
who accordingly abandoned his cause, and occasion'd our more speedy
discomfiture in the synod. I stuck by him, however, as I rather
approv'd his giving us good sermons compos'd by others, than bad
ones of his own manufacture, tho' the latter was the practice
of our common teachers. He afterward acknowledg'd to me that none
of those he preach'd were his own; adding, that his memory was such
as enabled him to retain and repeat any sermon after one reading only.
On our defeat, he left us in search elsewhere of better fortune,
and I quitted the congregation, never joining it after, tho' I continu'd
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson: The sea's immortal azure,
And If, that castellated spot,
Tower, turret, and embrasure.
FLOWER GOD, GOD OF THE SPRING
FLOWER god, god of the spring, beautiful, bountiful,
Cold-dyed shield in the sky, lover of versicles,
Here I wander in April
Cold, grey-headed; and still to my
Heart, Spring comes with a bound, Spring the deliverer,
Spring, song-leader in woods, chorally resonant;
Spring, flower-planter in meadows,
|
