| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Georgics by Virgil: Choose out the largest. So, by fate impelled,
Speed all things to the worse, and backward borne
Glide from us; even as who with struggling oars
Up stream scarce pulls a shallop, if he chance
His arms to slacken, lo! with headlong force
The current sweeps him down the hurrying tide.
Us too behoves Arcturus' sign observe,
And the Kids' seasons and the shining Snake,
No less than those who o'er the windy main
Borne homeward tempt the Pontic, and the jaws
Of oyster-rife Abydos. When the Scales
Georgics |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Georgics by Virgil: In Spring earth swells and claims the fruitful seed.
Then Aether, sire omnipotent, leaps down
With quickening showers to his glad wife's embrace,
And, might with might commingling, rears to life
All germs that teem within her; then resound
With songs of birds the greenwood-wildernesses,
And in due time the herds their loves renew;
Then the boon earth yields increase, and the fields
Unlock their bosoms to the warm west winds;
Soft moisture spreads o'er all things, and the blades
Face the new suns, and safely trust them now;
Georgics |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: fields, up at the pale, frightened face of the moon hooded in
clouds: he did not dare to look, with all his iron nerve, at the
dark figure beyond him on the road. She was sitting there just
where he had left her: he knew she would be. When he came
closer, she got up, not looking towards him; but he saw her clasp
her hands behind her, the fingers plucking weakly at each other.
It was an old, childish fashion of hers, when she was frightened
or hurt. It would only need a word, and he could be quiet and
firm,--she was such a child compared to him: he always had
thought of her so. He went on up to her slowly, and stopped;
when she looked at him, he untied the linen bonnet that hid her
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
