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

Mysteries of Afterlife (Kings Canyon)

Dear, beauteous Death! the jewel of the just,     Shining nowhere, but in the dark; What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust,     Could man outlook that mark! -Henry Vaughan (1622-1695), They Are All Gone into the World of Light

Captive Rage (Kings Canyon)

Chill Penury repressed their noble rage, And froze the genial current of the soul. -Thomas Gray (1716-1771), Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

Last Gift (Great Smoky Mountains)

Spend not then his gifts in vain. Suns that set may rise again, But if once we lost this light, 'Tis with us perpetual night. -Ben Johnson (1572-1637), Come, My Celia, Let Us Prove, from Volpone

Twin Compasses (Carlsbad)

If they be two, they are two so     As stiff twin compasses are two, Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show     To move, but doth if th' other do. And though it in the center sit,     Yet when the other far doth roam, It leans, and hearkens after it,     And grows erect as that comes home. Such wilt thou be to me, who must     Like th' other foot, obliquely run; The firmness makes my circle just,     And makes me end where I begun. -John Donne (1572-1631), A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

Dark Secret Love (Kings Canyon)

O Rose, thou art sick. The invisible worm That flies in the night In the howling storm Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy, And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy. -William Blake (1757-1827), The Sick Rose, from Songs of Experience

Pilgrims (Kings Canyon)

There came at night into that lodging-place Twenty-nine in a group Of sundry people, by chance fallen Into fellowship, and they were all pilgrims Wanting to ride toward Canterbury. -Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1340-1400), The Canterbury Tales

Jealous Eyes (Yosemite)

For fate with jealous eye does see Two perfect loves, nor lets them close; Their union would her ruin be, And her tyrannic power depose. -Andrew Marvell (1621-1678), The Definition of Love

Forgotten Promise (Yosemite)

Know that love is a careless child     And forgets promise past; He is blind, he is deaf when he list     And in faith never fast. -Anonymous (c.1400-c.1600), As You Came from the Holy Land of Walsingham

Wondrous Moment (Point Reyes)

Then die, that she The common fate of all things rare     May read in thee, How small a part of time they share     That are so wondrous sweet and fair. -Edmund Waller (1606-1687), Go, Lovely Rose

Suffering of Desires (Point Reyes)

Small is the worth Of beauty from the light retired:     Bid her come forth, Suffer herself to be desired,     And not blush so to be admired. -Edmund Waller (1606-1687), Go, Lovely Rose

Farewell to Earthly Bliss (SF Bay)

Adieu, farewell earth's bliss; This world uncertain is; -Thomas Nashe (1567-1601), Adieu, Farewell, Earth's Bliss, from Summer's Last Will and Testament

Fading Pleasure (SF Bay)

Grow rich in that which never taketh rust:     Whatever fades but fading pleasure brings. -Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586), Leave Me, O Love, Which Reachest But to Dust

Burden (SF Bay)

For forty days and forty nights     He wade thro red blude to the knee, And he saw neither sun nor moon,     But heard the roaring of the sea. -Anonymous (c.1400-c.1600), Thomas the Rhymer

Vanishing Moment (SF Bay)

O how feeble is man's power,     That, if good fortune fall, Cannot add another hour     Nor a lost hour recall! -John Donne (1572-1631), Sweetest Love, I do Not Go

Tumultuous Grandeur (White Sands)

Tumultuous grandeur crowds the blazing square, The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare. -Oliver Goldsmith (c.1730-1774), The Deserted Village

Luxury (White Sands)

She then shines forth, solicitous to bless, In all the glaring impotence of dress; Thus fares the land by luxury betrayed, In nature's simplest charms at first arrayed, But verging to decline, its splendors rise, Its vistas strike, its palaces surprise; -Oliver Goldsmith (c.1730-1774), The Deserted Village

Last Lights (White Sands)

'Tis the year's midnight, and it is the day's, Lucy's, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks;     The sun is spent, and now his flasks     Send forth light squibs, no constant rays; -John Donne (1572-1631), A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy's Day, Being the Shortest Day

When Fair Things Are Fading Away (White Sands)

I'd be a butterfly; living a rover, Dying when fair things are fading away! -Thomas Haynes Bayly (1797-1839), I'd Be Butterfly

Let There Be Light (Carlsbad)

Let there be light. -The Old Testament, Genesis 1:1-3

Noble Rage (Rainier)

I envy not in any moods     The captive void of noble rage,     The linnet born within the cage, That never knew the summer woods; -Alfred, Lord Tennyson, In Momoriam A. H. H., 1850

Departure (Rainier)

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife:     Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art: I warmed both hands before the fire of Life;     It sinks, and I am ready to depart. -Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864), I Strove with None, from The Last Fruit off an Old Tree

Heaven's Flame (Rainier)

'Tis Madness to resist or blame The force of angry Heavens Flame; -Andrew Marvell (1621-1678), An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland