Just like the falling rainbow,
Just like the stars in the sky,
Life should never feel small.

-Vearncombe

Fortissimo (Yosemite)

Not marble nor the gilded monuments
Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme.

-Shakespeare, Sonnets, LV

Marvel (Lassen)

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky.

-Wordsworth,
My Heart Leaps Up

technical information

Excitement (Devil's Postpile)

Be not hurried away by excitement, but say,
"Semblance, wait for me a little. Let me
see what you are and what you represent..."

-Epictetus,
How the Semblances of Things
are to be combated

Jewel (Kings Canyon)

I do set my bow in the clouds,
and it shall be for a token of a covenant
between me and the earth.

-Old Testament, Genesis, IX, 13

Beauty (Yosemite)

To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

-William Shakespeare, King John

Pursuit (Niagara)

You may grind their souls in the selfsame mill,
You may bind them, heart and brow;
But the poet will follow the rainbow still,
And his brother will follow the plow.
-John Boyle O'Reilly,

The Rainbow's Treasure

Duo (Niagara)

Dedicated to the memory of a special friend...

Les Deux Printemps	The Two Springs
Ses yeux sont deux printemps	Her eyes like two springs
Qui me font sourire et ça me fait rire	Make me smile, and make me laugh
Ses joues sont des torrents	Her cheeks like torrents
Les miennes s'y baignent mais encore pire	Mine swimming in hers, but worst
Son coeur est une fête	Her heart like a celebration
Le mien ne veut plus en sortir	Mine doesn't want to get out
Elle est la plus belle saison de ma vie	She's the most beautiful season of my life
La plus belle saison de ma vie	The most beautiful season of my life
-Daniel Bélanger, Quatre saison dans le Désordre	-Marilyn St-Louis, Translation

Farewell, too little, and too lately known, Whom I began to think and call my own; For sure our souls were near allied, and thine Cast in the same poetic mold with mine. One common note on either lyre did strike, And knaves and fools we both abhorred alike. -John Dryden, To the Memory of Mr. Oldham

Pleasure (SF Bay)

But pleasures are like poppies spread,   You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed; Or like the snow falls in the river, A moment white--then melts forever; Or like the borealis race, That flit ere you can point their place; Or like the rainbow's lovely form Evanishing amid the storm. -Robert Burns, Tam O'Shanter: A Tale

Sign (SF Bay)

God gave Noah the rainbow sign. No more water, the fire next time! -Anonymous, Negro spiritual

Recollection (The Great Smoky Mountains)

The Rainbow comes and goes,     And lovely is the Rose,     The Moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are bare,     Waters on a starry night     Are beautiful and fair; The sunshine is a glorious birth; But yet I know, where'er I go, That there hath past away a glory from the earth. -William Wordsworth (1770-1850), Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

Spirits of Light (Hawaii)

Clasp with thy panting soul the pendulous earth;         As from a centre, dart thy spirit's light         Beyond all worlds, until its spacious might     Satiate the void circumference: then shrink         Even to a point within our day and night;     And keep thy heart light, lest it make thee sink, When hope has kindled hope, and lured thee to the brink. -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Adonais

Being (Hawaii)

Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, Then Beauty is its own excuse for being: -Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), The Rhodora On Being Asked, Whence is The Flower?

Fading Splendor (Hawaii)

And all the Dreams that watched Urania's eyes,     And all the Echoes whom their Sister's song         Had held in holy silence, cried "Arise";     Swift as a thought by the snake Memory stung, From her ambrosial rest the fading Splendour sprung. -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Adonais

Lost Angel (Hawaii)

Lost angel of a ruined paradise!     She knew not 'twas her own,--as with no stain She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain. -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Adonais

Voice of Desire (Yellowstone)

Nay, barren are those mountains and spent the streams:     Our song is the voice of desire, that haunts our dreams,                 A throe of the heart, Whose pining visions dim, forbidden hopes profound,     No dying cadence nor long sigh can sound,                 For all our art. -Robert Bridges (1844-1930), Nightingales

Companions (Denali)

Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose! I never thought to ask, I never knew: But, in my simple ignorance, suppose The self-same Power that brought me there brought you. -Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), The Rhodora On Being Asked, Whence is The Flower?

Dark Angel (Denali)

The breath whose might I have invoked in song         Descends on me; my spirit's bark is driven     Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng         Whose sails were never to the tempest given.         The massy earth and spherèd skies are riven!     I am borne darkly, fearfully afar!         Whilst, burning through the inmost veil of heaven,     The soul of Adonais, like a star, Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are. -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Adonais

Yearning (Denali)

I long for scenes where man has never trod,     A place where woman never smiled or wept-- There to abide with my Creator, God,     And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept, Untroubling and untroubled where I lie, The grass below--above the vaulted sky. -John Clare (1793-1864), I am, written while he was confined in the General Lunatic Asylum in Northampton, where he spent about the last third of his life.