Woods by the Sea

This Hermit good lives in that wood Which slopes down to the sea. -Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Past and Future

Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind Cannot bear very much reality. Time past and time future What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present. -T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets: Burnt Norton, 1935

Sparkling Waves

The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed--and gazed--but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought -William Wordsworth, I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud

Burning Glory

And the Sun's image radiantly intense "Burned on the waters of the well that glowed Like gold, and threaded all the forest maze With winding paths of emerald fire--there stood "Amid the sun, as he amid the blaze Of his own glory, ... -Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Triumph of Life, 1824

Folding Wings

With the landless gull, that at sunset folds her wings and is rocked to sleep between billows; -Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, 1851

A Yellow Primrose

A primrose by a river's brim A yellow primrose was to him, And it was nothing more. -William Wordsworth, Peter Bell, 1798

Glimpses of Sea

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. -William Wordsworth, The World Is Too Much with Us, 1807

Mystic Wonders

I have seen the sunset, stained with mystic wonders, Illumine the rolling waves with long purple forms, Like actors in ancient plays. -Arthur Rimbaud, Le Bateau Ivre, 1871

Silent Shore

the silent shore Awaits at last even those who longest miss -Lord Byron, Don Juan, 1818-23

Symmetry

In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry? -William Blake, Songs of Experience, The Tyger, 1794

Crocodile

How doth the little crocodile Improve his shining tail, And pour the waters of the Nile On every golden scale! -Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 1865

Temple

What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape   Of deities or mortals, or of both,     In Temple or the dales of Arcady? -John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn

Mysterious Priests

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?     To what green altar, O mysterious priest -John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn

Tomorrow's Reflection

I am gone into the fields To take what this sweet hour yields-- Reflection, you may come tomorrow -Percy Bysshe Shelley, To Jane: An Invitation, 1822

Forest Floor

"Is there anybody there?" said the Traveler,     Knocking on the moonlit door; And his horse in the silence champed the grasses     Of the forest's ferny floor -Walter De La Mare, The Listeners

Starry Spears

When the stars threw down their spears And water'd heaven with their tears: Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? -William Blake, Songs of Experience, The Tyger, 1794