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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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XIII. Georgina Trevellyn to Louisa ----.

34 lines
Arthur Hugh Clough·1819–1861
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earest Louisa,--Inquire, if you please, about Mr. Claude ----.He has been once at R., and remembers meeting the H.'s.Harriet L., perhaps, may be able to tell you about him.It is an awkward youth, but still with very good manners;Not without prospects, we hear; and, George says, highly connected.Georgy declares it absurd, but Mamma is alarmed, and insists he hasTaken up strange opinions, and may be turning a Papist.Certainly once he spoke of a daily service he went to.'Where?' we asked, and he laughed and answered, 'At the Pantheon.'This was a temple, you know, and now is a Catholic church; andThough it is said that Mazzini has sold it for Protestant service,Yet I suppose this change can hardly as yet be effected.Adieu again,--evermore, my dearest, your loving Georgina. P.S. by Mary Trevellyn. I am to tell you, you say, what I think of our last new acquaintance.Well, then, I think that George has a very fair right to be jealous.I do not like him much, though I do not dislike being with him.He is what people call, I suppose, a superior man, andCertainly seems so to me; but I think he is terribly selfish. -------------------- Alba, thou findest me still, and, Alba, thou findest me ever,Now from the Capitol steps, now over Titus's Arch,Here from the large grassy spaces that spread from the Lateran portal,Towering o'er aqueduct lines lost in perspective between,Or from a Vatican window, or bridge, or the high Coliseum,Clear by the garlanded line cut of the Flavian ring.Beautiful can I not call thee, and yet thou hast power to o'ermaster,Power of mere beauty; in dreams, Alba, thou hauntest me still.Is it religion? I ask me; or is it a vain superstition?Slavery abject and gross? service, too feeble, of truth?Is it an idol I bow to, or is it a god that I worship?Do I sink back on the old, or do I soar from the mean?So through the city I wander and question, unsatisfied ever,Reverent so I accept, doubtful because I revere.
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