Hermitage in the Mirror (Yosemite)

And thus invoke us, "You, whom reverend love     Made one another's hermitage;     You, to whom love was peace, that now is rage; Who did the whole world's soul contract, and drove         Into the glasses of your eyes         (So made such mirrors, and such spies, That they did all to you epitomize);     Countries, towns, courts beg from above     A pattern of your love." -John Donne (1572-1631), The Canonization

Image of Eternity (Yosemite)

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Glasses itself in tempests; in all time, Calm or convulsed,--in breeze, or gale, or storm, Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime Dark-heaving; boundless, endless, and sublime, The image of Eternity,--the throne Of the Invisible! -George Gordon Noel Byron 6th Baron Byron (1788-1824), The Ocean

Blush (Yosemite)

And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress, And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago Blushed at the praise of their own loveliness; -George Gordon Noel Byron 6th Baron Byron (1788-1824), There Was a Sound of Reverlry by Night

Quivering Palaces (Yosemite)

Beside a pumice isle in Baiæ's bay, And saw in sleep old palaces and towers Quivering within the wave's intenser day, -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Ode to the West Wind

Dark Reflections (Yosemite)

Turn away no more: Why wilt thou turn away The starry floor The wat'ry shore Is giv'n thee till the break of day. -William Blake (1757-1827), Hear the Voice of the Bard, from Songs of Experience

Sunless River (Carlsbad)

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round. -Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan, 1798

Pleasure Dome (Rainier)

The shadow of the dome of pleasure         Floated midway on the waves;         Where was heard the mingled measure         From the fountain and the caves. It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! -Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), Kubla Khan

Starless Lake (Rainier)

Yon crescent Moon, as fixed as if it grew In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue; I see them all so excellently fair, I see, not feel, how beautiful they are! -Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), Dejection: An Ode

Pensive Rain (Kings Canyon)

But when chill blustering winds or driving rain Forbid my willing feet, be mine the hut     That from the mountain's side     Views wilds and swelling floods, And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires, And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all     Thy dewy fingers draw     The gradual dusky veil. -William Collins (1721-1759), Ode to Evening

Kubla Khan (Yosemite)

So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round; And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. -Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), Kubla Khan

Imaginary Depth (Yosemite)

Then lead, calm votaress, where some sheety lake Cheers the lone heath, or some time-hallowed pile,     Or upland fallows grey,     Reflect its last cool gleam. -William Collins (1721-1759), Ode to Evening

Worship (Yosemite)

I daresay anything can be made holy by being sincerely worshipped. -Iris Murdoch, The Message to the Planet

Image of Life (Yosemite)

And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned, But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all. -Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, 1851

Trembling Reflections (Yosemite)

Blank misgivings of a Creature Moving about in worlds not realized, High instincts before which our mortal Nature Did tremble like a guilty Thing surprised:         But for those first affections,         Those shadowy recollections,     Which, be they what they may, Are yet the fountain-light of all our day, Are yet a master-light of all our seeing; -William Wordsworth (1770-1850), Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

Visions in the Stream (Yosemite)

And let some strange mysterious dream Wave at his wings in airy stream Of lively portraiture displayed, Softly on my eyelids laid. -John Milton (1608-1674), Il Penseroso

Space in the Mirror (White Sands)

Somewhere--in desolate windswept space-- In Twilight land--in No-man's land-- Two hurrying Shapes met face to face, And bade each other stand. -Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836-1907), Identity, 1877

Kubla Khan (Rainier)

In Xanadu did Kubla Kahn A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man     Down to a sunless sea. -Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), Kubla Khan

Blue Eyes (Rainier)

And all that's best of dark and bright     Meet in her aspect and her eyes: Thus mellowed to that tender light     Which Heaven to gaudy day denies. -George Gordon Noel Byron 6th Baron Byron (1788-1824), She Walks in Beauty

Ocean Gems (San Francisco)

Full many a gem of purest ray serene, The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear: -Thomas Gray (1716-1771), Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

Twinkling Bay (San Francisco)

A hundred lamps beam'd in the tranquil gloom, From tree to tree all through the twinkling grove, -Matthew Arnold, Mycerinus,1849