Silver Wings (The Great Smoky Mountains)

There, like a bird, it sits and sings, Then whets and combs its silver wings, And, till prepared for longer flight, Waves in its plumes the various light. -Andrew Marvell (1621-1678), The Garden

Rainbow Lyre (The Great Smoky Mountains)

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own! The tumult of thy mighty harmonies -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Ode to the West Wind

Fountain of Happiness (Yosemite)

What objects are the fountains         Of thy happy strain?     What fields, or waves, or mountains?     What shapes of sky or plain? What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain? -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), To a Skylark

Phantom (Carlsbad)

She was a phantom of delight When first she gleamed upon my sight; A lovely apparition, sent To be a moment's ornament; Her eyes as stars of twilight fair; Like twilight's, too, her dusky hair; -William Wordsworth (1770-1850), She Was a Phatom of Delight

Tinsel Wings (Rainier)

Magnanimous despair alone Could show me so divine a thing, Where feeble hope could ne'er have flown, But vainly flapped its tinsel wing. -Andrew Marvell (1621-1678), The Definition of Love

Harmony (Rainier)

And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters. -William Wordsworth (1770-1850), Resolution and Independence

Haunting Shape (Rainier)

A dancing shape, an image gay, To haunt, to startle and waylay. -William Wordsworth (1770-1850), She Was a Phatom of Delight

Melodious Flow (Kings Canyon)

And we will sit upon the rocks, Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks By shallow rivers, to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals. -Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

Mountain Ghost (Yosemite)

O so white, O so soft, O so sweet is she! -Ben Johnson (1572-1637), The Triumph of Charis, from A Celebration of Charis in Ten Lyric Pieces

Moving Delight (Yosemite)

But still moves delight, Like clear springs renewed by flowing, Ever perfect, ever in them-     selves eternal. -Thomas Campion (1567-1620), Rose-cheeked Laura

Plea (Yosemite)

Slow, slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears; -Ben Johnson (1572-1637), Slow, Slow, Fresh Fount, Keep Time with My Salt Tears, from Cynthia's Revels

I Sing (Yosemite)

I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds and bowers, -Robert Herrick (1591-1673), The Argument of His Book

Whispering Leaves (Yosemite)

The poplars are felled, farewell to the shade And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade, The winds play no longer, and sing in the leaves, Nor Ouse on his bosom their image receives. -William Cowper (1731-1800), The Poplar Field

Weep No More (Yosemite)

Weep you no more, sad fountains;     What need you flow so fast? -Anonymous (c.1400-c.1600), Weep You No More, Sad Fountains

Happy Journey (Yosemite)

I love the Brooks which down their channels fret, Even more than when I tripped lightly as they; -William Wordsworth (1770-1850), Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

Glimpse of Soul (Yosemite)

Whilst my soul like a white palmer Travels to the land of heaven, -Sir Walter Ralegh (1554-1618), The Passionate Man's Pilgrimage

Where Sweetness Dwells (Yosemite)

I'll bring them first To slake their thirst, And then to taste those nectar suckets, At the clear wells Where sweetness dwells, Drawn up by saints in crystal buckets. -Sir Walter Ralegh (1554-1618), The Passionate Man's Pilgrimage

Dancer (Yosemite)

O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance? -William Butler Yeats, Among School Children, 1927

Vain Expectations (Wallace Falls)

When I (whom sullen care, Through discontent of my long fruitless stay In princes' court, and expectation vain Of idle hopes, which still do fly away Like empty shadows, did afflict my brain) Walked forth to ease my pain Along the shore of silver-streaming Thames; -Edmund Spenser (c.1552-1599), Prothalamion

Secret Joy (Wallace Falls)

Thou joy'st in better marks, of soil, of air, Of wood, of water; therein thou art fair. -Ben Johnson (1572-1637), To Penshurst

Soul of Light (Great Smoky Mountains)

Do but look on her eyes, they do light     All that Love's world compriseth! Do but look on her hair, it is bright     As Love's star when it riseth! -Ben Johnson (1572-1637), The Triumph of Charis, from A Celebration of Charis in Ten Lyric Pieces

Flight of the Soul (Great Smoky Mountains)

Here at the fountain's sliding foot, Or at some fruit-tree's mossy root, Casting the body's vest aside, My soul into the boughs does glide; -Andrew Marvell (1621-1678), The Garden

Resting Place (Great Smoky Mountains)

My fugitive years are all hasting away, And I must ere long lie as lowly as they, With a turf on my breast, and a stone at my head, Ere another such grove shall arise in its stead. -William Cowper (1731-1800), The Poplar Field

Let Me Woo Thee (Great Smoky Mountains)

Then, Julia, let me woo thee, Thus, thus to come unto me;     And when I shall meet     Thy silv'ry feet My soul I'll pour into thee. -Robert Herrick (1591-1673), The Night-Piece to Julia

Mind's Haven (Great Smoky Mountains)

Meanwhile the mind from pleasure less Withdraws into its happiness; The mind, that ocean where each kind Does straight its own resemblance find; Yet it creates, transcending these, Far other worlds, and other seas; Annihilating all that's made To a green thought in a green shade, -Andrew Marvell (1621-1678), The Garden

Flickering Companion (Great Smoky Mountains)

Methinks its motion in this hush of nature Gives it dim sympathies with me who live, Making it a companionable form, Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit By its own moods interprets, everywhere Echo or mirror seeking of itself, And makes a toy of Thought. -Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), Frost at Midnight

Mild Whispers (Carlsbad)

Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use Of shades and wanton winds and gushing brooks, On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks, Throw hither all your quaint enamel'd eyes That on the green turf suck the honey'd showers, And purple all the ground with vernal flowers. -John Milton (1608-1674), Lycidas

Drawing Tears (Rainier)

Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing Such notes as, warbled to the string, Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek, And made Hell grant what love did seek; -John Milton (1608-1674), Il Penseroso

Swift Tide (Rainier)

Thus from the sun my bottom steers, And my days' compass downward bears. Nor labour I to stem the tide, Through which to thee I swiftly glide. -Henry King (1592-1669), Exequy on His Wife

Hidden Brook (Rainier)

There in close covert by some brook, Where no profaner eye may look, Hide me from Day's garish eye, -John Milton (1608-1674), Il Penseroso

Conjunction of Minds (Rainier)

Therefore the love which us doth bind, But fate so enviously debars, Is the conjunction of the mind, And opposition of the stars. -Andrew Marvell (1621-1678), The Definition of Love

Tears from Heaven (Rainier)

He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear, He gained from Heav'n ('twas all he wished) a friend. -Thomas Gray (1716-1771), Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, The Epitaph