Passion (Liberty State Park, NJ)

I love thee to the level of every day's Most quiet need; by sun and candle-light. -Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861), How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways

Burning Roof (Liberty State Park, NJ)

A shudder in the loins engenders there The broken wall, the burning roof and tower And Agamemnon dead.                 Being so caught up, So mastered by the brute blood of the air, Did she put on his knowledge with his power Before the indifferent beak could let her drop? -William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939), Leda and the Swan

End of Times (Liberty State Park, NJ)

Though I am old with wandering Through hollow lands and hilly lands, I will find out where she has gone, And kiss her lips and take her hands; And walk among long dappled grass, And pluck till time and times are done The silver apples of the moon, The golden apples of the sun. -William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), The Song of Wandering Aengus

Blinding Flames (Liberty State Park, NJ)

Out of a grave I come to tell you this, Out of a grave I come to quench the kiss That flames upon your forehead with a glow That blinds you to the way that you must go. Yes, there is yet one way to where she is, Bitter, but one that faith may never miss. Out of a grave I come to tell you this-- To tell you this. -Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935), Luke Havergal

Evening Shadows (Liberty State Park, NJ)

I can see the breezy dome of groves,     The shadows of Deering's Woods; And the friendships old and the early loves Come back with a Sabbath sound, as of doves     In quiet neighborhoods.         And the verse of that sweet old song,         It flutters and murmurs still:     "A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), My Lost Youth

Gleams and Glooms (Liberty State Park, NJ)

I remember the gleams and glooms that dart     Across the schoolboy's brain; The song and the silence in the heart, That in part are prophecies, and in part     Are longings wild and vain.         And the voice of that fitful song         Sings on, and is never still:     "A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), My Lost Youth

Dreaming Through the Twilight (Liberty State Park, NJ)

I shall not see the shadows,     I shall not feel the rain; I shall not hear the nightingale     Sing on, as if in pain: And dreaming through the twilight     That doth not rise nor set, Haply I may remember,     And haply may forget. -Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-1894), When I Am Dead

Evening Warmth (Liberty State Park, NJ)

And through the hill-gaps sunset light Shone over it with a warm good-night. -John Greenleaf Whittier (1807 - 1892), Barbara Frietchie

Death City

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne In a strange city lying alone Far down within the dim West, Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best Have gone to their eternal rest. There shrines and palaces and towers (Time-eaten towers that tremble not!) Resemble nothing that is ours. Around, by lifting winds forgot, Resignedly beneath the sky The melancholy waters lie. -Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), The City in the Sea

Fire-Lit Face (Zion)

O Time and Change!---with hair as gray As my sire's that winter day, How strange it seems, with so much gone Of life and love, to still live on! Ah, brother! only I and thou Are left of all that circle now,-- The dear home faces whereupon That fitful firelight paled and shone. -John Greenleaf Whittier (1807 - 1892), Snow-Bound; A Winter Idyl

Second Coming (Zion)

The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? -William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939), The Second Coming

Slant of Light (Zion)

When it comes, the Landscape listens-- Shadows--hold their breath-- When it goes, 'tis like the Distance On the look of Death-- -Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), There's a certain Slant of light

Shrine of Melancholy (Zion)

She dwells with Beauty--Beauty that must die;     And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,     Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips: Ay, in the very temple of Delight     Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,         Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue     Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine; His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,     And be among her cloudy trophies hung. -John Keats (1795-1821), Ode on Melancholy

Lost Echo (Zion)

Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains,         And feeds her grief with his rememberd lay; -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Adonais

Nocturnal Secret (Zion)

Alone, aloud in the raptured ear of men     We pour our dark nocturnal secret; and then,                 As night is withdrawn From these sweet-springing meads and bursting boughs of May,     Dream, while the innumerable choir of day                 Welcome the dawn. -Robert Bridges (1844-1930), Nightingales

Eternity (Zion)

If the red slayer think he slays,     Or if the slain think he is slain, They know not well the subtle ways     I keep, and pass, and turn again. -Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), Brahma

Desolate Passion (Zion)

I cried for madder music and for stronger wine, But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire, Then falls thy shadow, Cynara! the night is thine; And I am desolate and sick of an old passion,     Yea, hungry for the lips of my desire: I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion. -Ernest Dowson (1867-1900), Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae sub Regno Cynarae

Dream Beach (Hawaii)

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach; Three fields to cross till a farm appears; A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch And blue spurt of a lighted match, And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears, Then the two hearts beating each to each! -Robert Browning (1812-1889), Meeting at Night

Kisses after Death (Hawaii)

Dear as remembered kisses after death, And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned On lips that are for others; deep as love, Deep as first love, and wild with all regret; O Death in Life, the days that are no more. -Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892), Tears, Idle Tears

I Hear (Hawaii)

And I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear the lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray, I hear it in the deep heart's core. -William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), The Lake Isle of Innisfree

Longing (Hawaii)

I long for scenes where man has never trod,     A place where woman never smiled or wept-- There to abide with my Creator, God,     And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept, Untroubling and untroubled where I lie, The grass below--above the vaulted sky. -John Clare (1793-1864), I am, written while he was confined in the General Lunatic Asylum in Northampton, where he spent about the last third of his life.

Mystic Tides (Hawaii)

He has left the village and mounted the steep, And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep, Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides; -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), Paul Revere's Ride

Kindling the Universe (Shenandoah)

That light whose smile kindles the universe,         That beauty in which all things work and move,     That benediction which the eclipsing curse         Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love         Which, through the web of being blindly wove     By man and beast and earth and air and sea,         Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of     The fire for which all thirst, now beams on me, Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality. -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Adonais

Yearnings in the Night (Shenandoah)

I can give not what men call love,     But wilt thou accept not The worship the heart lifts above     And the Heavens reject not,-- The desire of the moth for the star,     Of the night for the morrow, The devotion to something afar     From the sphere of our sorrow? -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), To __

Haunted Forest (Shenandoah)

O brightest! though too late for antique vows,     Too, too late for the fond believing lyre, When holy were the haunted forest boughs,     Holy the air, the water, and the fire; Yet even in these days so far retired     From happy pieties, thy lucent fans,     Fluttering among the faint Olympians, I see, and sing, by my own eyes inspired. So let me be thy choir, and make a moan         Upon the midnight hours; Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet     From swingèd censer teeming: Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat     Of pale-mouthed prophet dreaming. -John Keats (1795-1821), Ode to Psyche

Passion of the Night (Shenandoah)

I remember, I remember, The fir trees dark and high; I used to think their slender tops Were close against the sky; -Thomas Hood (1799-1845), I Remember, I Remember

Tumultuous Storm (Shenandoah)

The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed In a tumultuous privacy of storm. -Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), The Snow-Storm

Hallowed Hour (Shenandoah)

She danced along with vague, regardless eyes;     Anxious her lips, her breathing quick and short:     The hallowed hour was near at hand: she sighs     Amid the timbrels, and the thronged resort     Of whisperers in anger, or in sport;     'Mid looks of love, defiance, hate, and scorn,     Hoodwinked with faery fancy; all amort,     Save to St Agnes and her lambs unshorn, And all the bliss to be before tomorrow morn. -John Keats (1795-1821), The Eve of St. Agnes

Midnight Ecstasy (Shenandoah)

Now more than ever seems it rich to die,     To cease upon the midnight with no pain,         While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad             In such an ecstasy! -John Keats (1795-1821), Ode to a Nightingale

Unimprisoned Flames (Shenandoah)

Ah woe is me! Winter is come and gone,         But grief returns with the revolving year.     The airs and streams renew their joyous tone;         The ants, the bees, the swallows, re-appear;         Fresh leaves and flowers deck the dead Season's bier;     The amorous birds now pair in every brake,         And build their mossy homes in field and brere;     And the green lizard and the golden snake, Like unimpresoned flames, out of their trance awake. -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Adonais

Baffled Rage (Shenandoah)

Shut in from all the world without, We sat the clean-winged hearth about, Content to let the north-wind roar In baffled rage at pane and door, While the red logs before us beat The frost-line back with tropic heat; -John Greenleaf Whittier (1807 - 1892), Snow-Bound; A Winter Idyl

Night and the Wind (Shenandoah)

What matter how the night behaved? What matter how the north-wind raved? Blow high, blow low, not all its snow Could quench our hearth-fire's ruddy glow. -John Greenleaf Whittier (1807 - 1892), Snow-Bound; A Winter Idyl

Dust to Dust (Shenandoah)

Dust to the dust: but the pure spirit shall flow     Back to the burning fountain whence he came,         A portion of the Eternal, which must glow     Through time and change, unquenchably the same, Whilst thy cold embers choke the sordid hearth of shame. -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Adonais

Silent Majesty (Point Reyes)

And many more, whose names on earth are dark,         But whose transmitted effluence cannot die     So long as fire outlives the parent spark,         Rose, robed in dazzling immortality.         "Thou art become as one of us," they cry;     "It was for thee you kingless sphere has long         Swung blind in unascended majesty,     Silent alone amid an heaven of song. Assume thy wingèd throne, thou Vesper of our throng!" -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Adonais

Call of the Ocean (Point Reyes)

Sunset and evening star,     And one clear call for me! And may there be no moaning of the bar,     When I put out to sea, -Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892), Crossing the Bar

Solitary Way (Point Reyes)

Whither, 'midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue     Thy solitary way? -William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), To a Waterfowl

Fishman (Point Reyes)

Seek'st thou the plashy brink Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, Or where the rocking billows rise and sink     On the chafed ocean side? -William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), To a Waterfowl

When I Embark (Point Reyes)

Twilight and evening bell,     And after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell,     When I embark; For though from out our bourne of Time and Place     The flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face     When I have crossed the bar. -Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892), Crossing the Bar

Mirrors of Fire (Point Reyes)

That light whose smile kindles the universe,         That beauty in which all things work and move,     That benediction which the eclipsing curse         Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love         Which, through the web of being blindly wove     By man and beast and earth and air and sea,         Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of     The fire for which all thirst, now beams on me, Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality. -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Adonais

Weight of the Hour (Point Reyes)

A pard-like Spirit beautiful and swift--         A love in desolation masked--a power     Girt round with weakness; it can scarce uplift         The weight of the superincumbent hour.         It is a dying lamp, a falling shower,     A breaking billow;--even whilst we speak         Is it not broken? On the withering flower     The killing sun smiles brightly: on a cheek The life can burn in blood even while the heart may break. -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Adonais

Pursuit (Point Reyes)

Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose! I never thought to ask, I never knew: But, in my simple ignorance, suppose The self-same Power that brought me there brought you. -Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), The Rhodora On Being Asked, Whence is The Flower?

Wings (Point Reyes)

They reckon ill who leave me out;     When me they fly, I am the wings; I am the doubter and the doubt,     And I the hymn the Brahmin sings. -Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), Brahma

Last Light (Point Reyes)

And while in life's late afternoon,     Where cool and long the shadows grow, I walk to meet the night that soon     Shall shape and shadow overflow, I cannot feel that thou art far, Since near at need the angels are; -John Greenleaf Whittier (1807 - 1892), Snow-Bound; A Winter Idyl

Beckoning Hand (Point Reyes)

And when the sunset gates unbar,     Shall I not see thee waiting stand, And, white against the evening star,     The welcome of thy beckoning hand? -John Greenleaf Whittier (1807 - 1892), Snow-Bound; A Winter Idyl

Western Wave (Point Reyes)

Swiftly walk o'er the western wave,     Spirit of Night! Out of the misty eastern cave, Where, all the long and lone daylight, Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear, Which make thee terrible and dear,--     Swift by thy flight! -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), To Night

Struggle of Light and Darkness (Acadia)

In the death-chamber for a moment Death,         Shamed by the presence of that living Might,     Blushed to annihilation, and the breath         Revisited those lips, and life's pale light         Flashed through those limbs so late her dear delight. -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Adonais

Signal Light (Acadia)

Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch Of the North Church tower as a signal light,-- -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), Paul Revere's Ride

Sea Thunders (New York)

I remember the sea-fight far away,     How it thundered o'er the tide! And the dead captains, as they lay In their graves, o'erlooking the tranquil bay,     Where they in battle died.         And the sound of that mournful song         Goes through me with a thrill:     "A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), My Lost Youth

Fire and Steel (New York)

Out of her secret paradise she sped,     Through camps and cities rough with stone and steel -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Adonais

Second Lamp (New York)

And lo! as he looks, on the belfry height A glimmer, and then a gleam of light! He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns, But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight A second lamp in the belfry burns! -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), Paul Revere's Ride

Sound and Fury (New York)

The knotty forestick laid apart, And filled between with curious art The ragged brush; then, hovering near, We watched the first red blaze appear, Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam On whitewashed wall and sagging beam, Until the old, rude-furnished room Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom; -John Greenleaf Whittier (1807 - 1892), Snow-Bound; A Winter Idyl

Mysterious Ships (New York)

I remember the black wharves and the slips,     And the sea-tides tossing free; And Spanish sailors with bearded lips, And the beauty and mystery of the ships,     And the magic of the sea.         And the voice of that wayward song         Is singing and saying still:     "A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), My Lost Youth

Forever Fair (New York)

Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal--yet, do not grieve;         She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,     For ever wilt though love, and she be fair! -John Keats (1795-1821), Ode on a Grecian Urn

Flowers of Light (New York)

I remember, I remember, The roses, red and white, The violets, and the lily-cups, Those flowers made of light! -Thomas Hood (1799-1845), I Remember, I Remember

High Romance (New York)

When I behold, upon the night's starred face,     Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace     Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance; -John Keats (1795-1821), When I Have Fears

Tempestuous Burst (New York)

from which a glorious Phantom may Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day. -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), England in 1819

Kindred Lights (New York)

A godlike mind soars forth, in its delight         Making earth bare and veiling heaven; and when     It sinks, the swarms that dimmed or shared its light Leave to its kindred lamps the spirit's awful night. -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Adonais

Glorious Phantom (New York)

from which a glorious Phantom may Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day. -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), England in 1819

Dying Light (New York)

"Leave me not wild and drear and comfortless,         As silent lightning leaves the starless night!     Leave me not!" cried Urania. Her distress Roused Death: Death rose and smiled, and met her vain caress. -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Adonais

Twilight Fantasies (Princeton)

Splendours, and Glooms, and glimmering Incarnations     Of Hopes and Fears, and twilight Fantasies; -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Adonais

Agnes' Eve (Princeton)

They told her how, upon St. Agnes' Eve, Young virgins might have visions of delight, And soft adorings from their loves receive Upon the honeyed middle of the night, If ceremonies due they did aright; -John Keats (1795-1821), The Eve of St. Agnes

Summer Fever (Princeton)

I remember, I remember, Where I was used to swing, And thought the air must rush as fresh To swallows on the wing; My spirit flew in feathers then, That is so heavy now, And summer pools could hardly cool The fever on my brow! -Thomas Hood (1799-1845), I Remember, I Remember

Evening Air (Princeton)

Strange to me now are the forms I meet     When I visit the dear old town; But the native air is pure and sweet, And the trees that o'ershadow each well-known street,     As they balance up and down,         Are singing the beautiful song,         Are sighing and whispering still:     "A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), My Lost Youth