Only the desert has a fascination--
to ride alone--in the sun in the forever
unpossessed country--away from man.

-D. H. Lawrence, 1922,
The Letters of D. H. Lawrence





Fear No More

Fear no more the lightning flash,
    Nor the all-dreaded thunder stone;

-William Shakespeare (1564-1616),
Fear No More
the Heat o' the Sun
,
from Cymbeline





Space in the Mirror

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





Fantasies

A thousand fantasies
Begin to throng into my memory,
Of calling shapes, and beck'ning shadows dire,
And airy tongues that syllable men's names
On sands and shores and desert wildernesses.

-John Milton (1608-1674), Comus





Mind's Ocean

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;

-Andrew Marvell (1621-1678),
The Garden





Dry Sea

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear
    And the rocks melt wi' the sun;
I will luve thee still, my dear,
    While the sands o' life shall run.

-Robert Burns (1759-1796),
A Red, Red Rose





Blazing Sea

Far different there from all that charmed before,
The various terrors of that horrid shore,--
Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray,
And fiercely shed intolerable days;

-Oliver Goldsmith (c.1730-1774),
The Deserted Village





Immortal Sea

    Hence in a season of calm weather
        Though inland far we be,
Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea
        Which brought us hither,
    Can in a moment travel thither,
And see the Children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

-William Wordsworth (1770-1850),
Ode: Intimations of Immortality from
Recollections of Early Childhood





Barren Splendor

While thus the land, adorned for pleasure all,
In barren splendor feebly waits the fall.

-Oliver Goldsmith (c.1730-1774),
The Deserted Village





Ethereal Waves

If aught of Oaten Stop, or Pastoral Song
May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear,
    Like thy own solemn springs,
    Thy springs and dying gales,
O nymph reserved, while now the bright-haired sun
Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,
    With brede ethereal wove,
    O'erhand his wavy bed;

-William Collins (1721-1759),
Ode to Evening





Desert Shyness

    Tell her that's young
And shuns to have her graces spied,
    That, hadst thou sprung
In deserts where no men abide,
    Thou must have uncommended died.

-Edmund Waller (1606-1687),
Go, Lovely Rose





Thunder Clouds

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

-Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892), The Eagle





Hastening Waves

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards to contend.

-William Shakespeare (1564-1616),
Like as the Waves
Make towards the Pebbled Shore
,
Sonnet LX





Parallel Worlds

As lines, so loves, oblique may well
Themselves in every angle greet;
But ours so truly parallel,
Though infinite, can never meet.

-Andrew Marvell (1621-1678),
The Definition of Love





Desert Chariot

    But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near,
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.

-Andrew Marvell (1621-1678),
To His Coy Mistress





Burning Spear

With an host of furious fancies
Whereof I am commander,
With a burning spear and a horse of air,
To the wilderness I wander.

-Anonymous (c.1400-c.1600),
Tom o' Bedlam's Song





Tumultuous Grandeur

Tumultuous grandeur crowds the blazing square,
The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare.

-Oliver Goldsmith (c.1730-1774),
The Deserted Village





Luxury

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





Dark Ruin

Till, sapped their strength, and every part unsound,
Down, down they sink, and spread a ruin round.

-Oliver Goldsmith (c.1730-1774),
The Deserted Village





Last Lights

'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

I'd be a butterfly; living a rover,
Dying when fair things are fading away!

-Thomas Haynes Bayly (1797-1839),
I'd Be Butterfly





Frail Charms

But when those charms are past,--for charms are frail,--
When time advances, and when lovers fail,

-Oliver Goldsmith (c.1730-1774),
The Deserted Village





Lost Youth

But I am none; nor will my sun renew.
You lovers, for whose sake the lesser sun
    At this time to the Goat is run
    To fetch new lust, and give it you,
        Enjoy your summer all;

-John Donne (1572-1631),
A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy's Day,
Being the Shortest Day






images © 1999 by Randy Wang
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