| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Prufrock/Other Observations by T. S. Eliot: My buried life, and Paris in the Spring
feel immeasurably at peace, and find the world
To be wonderful and youthful, after all."
The voice returns like the insistent out-of-tune
Of a broken violin on an August afternoon:
"I am always sure that you understand
My feelings, always sure that you feel,
Sure that across the gulf you reach your hand.
You are invulnerable, you have no Achilles’ heel.
You will go on, and when you have prevailed
You can say: at this point many a one has failed.
Prufrock/Other Observations |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: At that I suppose he raised up his face, a dimly pale oval
in the shadow of the ship's side. But even then I could only
barely make out down there the shape of his black-haired head.
However, it was enough for the horrid, frost-bound sensation
which had gripped me about the chest to pass off.
The moment of vain exclamations was past, too. I only climbed
on the spare spar and leaned over the rail as far as I could,
to bring my eyes nearer to that mystery floating alongside.
As he hung by the ladder, like a resting swimmer, the sea
lightning played about his limbs at every stir; and he appeared
in it ghastly, silvery, fishlike. He remained as mute as
The Secret Sharer |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Flame and Shadow by Sara Teasdale: The scent of orchards in the rain, the sea
And hours alone too still and sure for prayer --
Since darkness waits for me, then all the more
Let me go down as waves sweep to the shore
In pride; and let me sing with my last breath;
In these few hours of light I lift my head;
Life is my lover -- I shall leave the dead
If there is any way to baffle death.
"The Dreams of My Heart"
The dreams of my heart and my mind pass,
Nothing stays with me long,
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