The title "Cupid's Arrows" by Rudyard Kipling.
What is the Roman god of love?
"...against the western wall, a gigantic clock of ebony.." (Edgar Allen Poe)
death or the inevitable passage of time towards death
A Piece of Chalk
playful
The Masque of the Red Death
Death is unavoidable no matter who you are
Allusion
"And this is the mistake people make about old poet's who lived before Wordsworth...." (from "A Piece of Chalk" by GK Chesterton)
William Wordsworth, Poet Laureate of Victorian era England
White
in "A Piece of Chalk" by Chesterton
Virtue
The Listeners
mysterious
Afterglow
Endings are unnerving, especially when you don't know what is next
A person, place, thing or idea within a narrative or poem that means something in addition to itself
Symbol
"And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night."
1Thess 5:2 "...the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night." or 2Peter 3:10
the Crab "a horrible thing which raced sideways"
"maggie and milly and molly and may"
Fear or some who is fearful
The Masque of the Red Death
strange, frightening, grotesque
The Progress of Poesy
Creativity is greatest when you're young; then gradually dries up as you age
the overall emotion pervading a work of literature
Atmosphere
"Could he on me have breathed with his breath / His gifts, Elias-like, after his death," (from "Sir Francis Drake" by Robert Hayman)
2Kings 2 - Elijah and his successor, Elisha
the afterglow of a sunset
(from "Afterglow" by Jorges Luis Borges)
Death or Endings
Afterglow
melancholy, uneasy, foreboding
A Piece of Chalk
Virtue is not the absence of wrong but a powerful thing of substance in itself
the person created by the author to tell the story
Persona
"Youth rambles on life's arid mount, / And strikes the rock, and finds the vein / And brings the water from the fount," (from "The Progress of Poesy" by Matthew Arnold)
Moses smiting the rock in Exo 17
Water or "the fount"
(in "The Progress of Poesy" by Arnold)
Creativity or creative inspiration
The Progress of Poesy
fatalistic and/or pessimistic
maggie and milly and molly and may
What one sees in the world and how one responds to it reveals one's personality and character.
the attitude of an author toward his or her subject
Tone