| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Children of the Night by Edwin Arlington Robinson: But the fates are ever the fates, and a crown is ever a crown.
The Wilderness
Come away! come away! there's a frost along the marshes,
And a frozen wind that skims the shoal where it shakes the dead black water;
There's a moan across the lowland and a wailing through the woodland
Of a dirge that sings to send us back to the arms of those that love us.
There is nothing left but ashes now where the crimson chills of autumn
Put off the summer's languor with a touch that made us glad
For the glory that is gone from us, with a flight we cannot follow,
To the slopes of other valleys and the sounds of other shores.
Come away! come away! you can hear them calling, calling,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: "He thinks that the Frenchman had lost sight of the poor woman
right enough. Then came that period of silence. But the horrible
ruffian had not given up his murderous purpose. He reasoned that
she would try to steal back to her child, and went to lie in wait
for her near the house.
"It must have been something like that. As she entered the light
falling about the house-ladder, he had rushed at her too soon,
impatient for vengeance. She had let out that second scream of
mortal fear when she caught sight of him, and turned to run for
life again.
"This time she was making for the river, but not in a straight
Within the Tides |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: choose, a man partaketh of the light divine, and advanceth in the
practice of this philosophy in exact measure of his choice, for
there are differences of choice. And even as water-springs,
issuing from the hollows of the earth, sometimes gush forth from
the surface soil, and sometimes from a lower source, and at other
times from a great depth, and even as some of these waters bubble
forth continuously, and their taste is sweet, while others that
come from deep wells are brackish or sulphurous, even as some
pour forth in abundance while others flow drop by drop, thus,
understand thou, is it also with our choices. Some choices are
swift and exceeding fervent, others languid and cold: some have a
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