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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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I.

44 lines
Coventry Patmore·1823–1896
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HERE she succeeds with cloudless brow,In common and in holy course,He fails, in spite of prayer and vowAnd agonies of faith and force;Or, if his suit with Heaven prevailsTo righteous life, his virtuous deedsLack beauty, virtue’s badge; she failsMore graciously than he succeeds.Her spirit, compact of gentleness,If Heaven postpones or grants her pray’r,Conceives no pride in its success,And in its failure no despair;But his, enamour’d of its hurt,Baffled, blasphemes, or, not denied,Crows from the dunghill of desert,And wags its ugly wings for pride.He’s never young nor ripe; she growsMore infantine, auroral, mild,And still the more she lives and knowsThe lovelier she’s express’d a child.Say that she wants the will of manTo conquer fame, not check’d by cross,Nor moved when others bless or ban;She wants but what to have were loss.Or say she wants the patient brainTo track shy truth; her facile witAt that which he hunts down with painFlies straight, and does exactly hit.Were she but half of what she is,He twice himself, mere love alone,Her special crown, as truth is his,Gives title to the worthier throne;For love is substance, truth the form;Truth without love were less than nought;But blindest love is sweet and warm,And full of truth not shaped by thought,And therefore in herself she standsAdorn’d with undeficient grace,Her happy virtues taking hands,Each smiling in another’s face.So, dancing round the Tree of Life,They make an Eden in her breast,While his, disjointed and at strife,Proud-thoughted, do not bring him rest.
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