| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Children of the Night by Edwin Arlington Robinson: Into the light? -- or into the darkness?
Why do I sit through these sickening hours,
And hope? Good God! are they hours? -- hours?
Yes! I am done with days. And to-morrow --
We two may meet! To-morrow! -- To-morrow! . . .
Walt Whitman
The master-songs are ended, and the man
That sang them is a name. And so is God
A name; and so is love, and life, and death,
And everything. But we, who are too blind
To read what we have written, or what faith
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy: feature--every tremor--every confused word--was taken as so much
proof of her unworthiness.
'Elfride, we must bid good-bye to compliment,' said Knight: 'we
must do without politeness now. Look in my face, and as you
believe in God above, tell me truly one thing more. Were you away
alone with him?'
'Yes.'
'Did you return home the same day on which you left it?'
'No.'
The word fell like a bolt, and the very land and sky seemed to
suffer. Knight turned aside. Meantime Elfride's countenance wore
A Pair of Blue Eyes |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Sir John Mandeville: bush burning, and spake to him. And that was at the foot of the
hill. There is an abbey of monks, well builded and well closed
with gates of iron for dread of the wild beasts; and the monks be
Arabians or men of Greece. And there [is] a great convent, and all
they be as hermits, and they drink no wine, but if it be on
principal feasts; and they be full devout men, and live poorly and
simply with joutes and with dates, and they do great abstinence and
penances.
There is the Church of Saint Catherine, in the which be many lamps
burning; for they have of oil of olives enough, both for to burn in
their lamps and to eat also. And that plenty have they by the
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