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ReadingWillow structured literacy program for Australian students
Poetry Library

— Stephen Crane

I stood upon a high place,

And saw, below, many devils

Running, leaping,

And carousing in sin.

…

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adjective

Engaged in or ready for action; characterized by energetic work, thought, or speech.

“The students were very active in class discussions, asking many thoughtful questions.”

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XII. Claude to Eustace.

26 lines
Arthur Hugh Clough·1819–1861
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ut I am in for it now,--laissez faire, of a truth, laissez aller.Yes, I am going,--I feel it, I feel and cannot recall it,--Fusing with this thing and that, entering into all sorts of relations,Tying I know not what ties, which, whatever they are, I know one thing,Will, and must, woe is me, be one day painfully broken,--Broken with painful remorses, with shrinkings of soul, and relentings,Foolish delays, more foolish evasions, most foolish renewals.But I have made the step, have quitted the ship of Ulysses;Quitted the sea and the shore, passed into the magical island;Yet on my lips is the moly, medicinal, offered of Hermes.I have come into the precinct, the labyrinth closes around me,Path into path rounding slyly; I pace slowly on, and the fancy,Struggling awhile to sustain the long sequences, weary, bewildered,Fain must collapse in despair; I yield, I am lost, and know nothing;Yet in my bosom unbroken remaineth the clue; I shall use it.Lo, with the rope on my loins I descend through the fissure; I sink, yetInly secure in the strength of invisible arms up above me;Still, wheresoever I swing, wherever to shore, or to shelf, orFloor of cavern untrodden, shell sprinkled, enchanting, I know IYet shall one time feel the strong cord tighten about me,--Feel it, relentless, upbear me from spots I would rest in; and though theRope sway wildly, I faint, crags wound me, from crag unto crag re-Bounding, or, wide in the void, I die ten deaths, ere the end IYet shall plant firm foot on the broad lofty spaces I quit, shallFeel underneath me again the great massy strengths of abstraction,Look yet abroad from the height o'er the sea whose salt wave I have tasted.
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