Beginning (Kings Canyon)

Then am I ready, like a palmer fit, To tread those blest paths which before I writ. -Sir Walter Ralegh (1554-1618), The Passionate Man's Pilgrimage

Free As Wind (Yosemite)

My lines and life are free; free as the road,   Loose as the wind, as large as store. -George Herbert (1593-1633), The Collar

Lone Journey (Yosemite)

Martinmas wind, when wilt thou blow,     And shake the green leaves off the tree? O gentle death, when wilt thou come?     For of my life I am weary. -Anonymous (c.1400-c.1600), Waly, Waly

Wanderer of Woods (Great Smoky Mountains)

If this Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft-- In darkness and amid the many shapes Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, Have hung upon the beatings of my heart-- How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee, O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods,     How often has my spirit turned to thee! -William Wordsworth, Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, 1798