Silent Light (Point Reyes)

And the bay was white with silent light, Till rising from the same, Full many shapes, that shadows were, In crimson colors came. -Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Riding the Storm (Paris)

God moves in a mysterious way,     His wonders to perform; He plants his footsteps in the sea,     And rides upon the storm. -William Cowper, Light Shining Out of Darkness, 1772

Soft Deluge (French Alps)

From unassisted vision hid, the moons   To cheer remoter planets numerous pour'd,   By him in all their mingled tracts were seen.   He also fix'd the wandering Queen of Night,   Whether she wanes into a scanty orb,   Or, waxing broad, with her pale shadowy light,   In a soft deluge overflows the sky. -James Thomson, A Poem Sacred to the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton, 1727

Towering Heights (near Reno)

When storm-clouds brood on the towering heights     Of the hills of the Chankly Bore. -Edward Lear, The Dong with the Luminous Nose, 1877

Behind the Clouds (Baja)

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining; Behind the clouds is the sun still shining; Thy fate is the common fate of all, Into each life some rain must fall -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Rainy Day, 1841

Blind Fury (SF Bay)

But the fair Guerdon when we hope to find, And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind Fury with th'abhorred shears, And slits the thin-spun life. -John Milton, Lycidas, 1637

Second Self (SF Bay)

In me thou see'st the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by and by black night doth take away, Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, -William Shakespeare, That time of year thou mayst in me behold, 1609

Place of Souls (SF Bay)

Above the soft sweep of the breathless bay   Southwestward, far past flight of night and day,   Lower than the sunken sunset sinks, and higher Than dawn can freak the front of heaven with fire, My thought with eyes and wings made wide makes way To find the place of souls that I desire. -Algernon Charles Swinburne, In the Bay, 1878

Breathing Sea (SF Bay)

And when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,       Its ardours of rest and of love, And the crimson pall of eve may fall       From the depth of Heaven above, With wings folded I rest, on mine aëry nest,       As still as a brooding dove. -Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Cloud, 1820

Lonely Cloud (SF Bay)

I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills -William Wordsworth, I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud, 1804

Across the Sea (SF Bay)

Hath not the sunset shown across the sea A way majestical enough for thee? -Algernon Charles Swinburne, In the Bay, 1878