Between the Light and Me (Zion)

With Blue--uncertain stumbling Buzz-- Between the light--and me-- And then the Windows failed--and then I could not see to see-- -Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), I heard a Fly buzz--when I died

Angel Hair (Zion)

On desperate seas long wont to roam,     The hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home     To the glory that was Greece, And the grandeur that was Rome. -Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), To Helen

Distant Maiden (Zion)

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!--prophet still, if bird or devil!-- By that Heaven that bends above us--by that God we both adore-- Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore-- Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore."         Quoth the raven, "Nevermore." -Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), The Raven

Dim Tears (Zion)

Morning sought     Her eastern watch-tower, and her hair unbound,     Wet with the tears which should adorn the ground, Dimmed the aërial eyes that kindle day; -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Adonais

Voliceless Fountain (Zion)

Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains,         And feeds her grief with his rememberd lay;     And will no more reply to winds or fountains,         Or amorous birds perched on the young green spray,         Or herdsman's horn, or bell at closing day; -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Adonais

Silent Leap (Zion)

Than Oars divide the Ocean,-- Too silver for a seam-- Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon Leap, plashless as they swim. -Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), A Bird came down the Walk

Fleeting Hope (Zion)

Till I scarecely more than muttered "Other friends have flown before-- One the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before." -Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), The Raven

Fainting Soul (Zion)

O love, they die in you rich sky,     They faint on hill or field or river; Our echoes roll from soul to soul,     And grow for ever and for ever. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying. -Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892), The Splendor Falls

Weeping Cloud (Zion)

But when the melancholy fit shall fall     Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud, That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,     And hides the green hill in an April shroud; -John Keats (1795-1821), Ode on Melancholy

Idle Tears (Zion)

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy autumn-fields, And thinking of the days that are no more. -Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892), Tears, Idle Tears

Murmur (Zion)

Since she can mimic not his lips, more dear         Than those for whose disdain she pined away     Into a shadow of all sounds:--a drear Murmur, between their songs, is all the woodmen hear. -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Adonais

Beauty and the Beast (Zion)

Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unageing intellect. -William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939), Sailing to Byzantium

Caress (Zion)

Helen, thy beauty is to me     Like those Nicéan barks of yore, That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,     That weary, way-worn wanderer bore     To his own native shore. -Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), To Helen

Dark Valley (Zion)

And travellers, now, within that valley,     Through the red-litten windows see Vast forms that move fantastically     To a discordant melody; While, like a ghastly rapid river,     Through the pale door A hideous throng rush out forever,     And laugh--but smile no more. -Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), The Haunted Palace

Beauty and the Beast (Zion)

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee;       Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?       Thy waters wasted them while they were free,       And many a tyrant since; their shores obey       The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay       Has dried up realms to deserts: not so thou;       Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play,       Time writes no wrinkles on thine azure brow; Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now. -George Gordon Noel Byron 6th Baron Byron (1788-1824), The Ocean

Pulsating Heart (Zion)

And how can body, laid in that white rush, But feel the strange heart beating where it lies? -William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Leda and the Swan

Summer Dreams (Zion)

But sleep stole on, as sleep will do When hearts are light and life is new; Faint and more faint the murmurs grew, Till in the summer-land of dreams They softened to the sound of streams, Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars, And lapsing waves on quiet shores. -John Greenleaf Whittier (1807 - 1892), Snow-Bound; A Winter Idyl

Mysterious Path (Zion)

We tread the paths their feet have worn,     We sit beneath their orchard trees,     We hear, like them, the hum of bees And rustle of the bladed corn; We turn the pages that they read,     Their written words we linger o'er, But in the sun they cast no shade, No voice is heard, no sign is made,     No step is on the conscious floor! -John Greenleaf Whittier (1807 - 1892), Snow-Bound; A Winter Idyl

Dissolving Memory (Zion)

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget     What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret -John Keats (1795-1821), Ode to a Nightingale

Eternal Note (Zion)

Listen! you hear the grating roar Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, At their return, up the high strand, Begin, and cease, and then again begin, With tremulous cadence slow, and bring The eternal note of sadness in. -Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), Dover Beach

Quiet Waves (Zion)

Here life has death for neighbour,     And far from eye or ear Wan waves and wet winds labour,     Weak ships and spirits steer; They drive adrift, and whither They wot not who make thither; But no such winds blow hither,     And no such things grow here. -Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909), The Garden of Proserpine

Days End (Zion)

Break, break, break,     At the foot of thy crags, O Sea! But the tender grace of a day that is dead     Will never come back to me. -Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892), Break, Break, Break

Evening Bed (Zion)

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?     Of labour you shall find the sum. Will there be beds for me and all who seek?     Yea, beds for all who come. -Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-1894), Up-Hill

Night Wind (Zion)

The Sea of Faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating, to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world. -Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), Dover Beach

Dream Tears (Zion)

"Our love, our hope, our sorrow, is not dead!     See, on the silken fringe of his faint eyes,     Like dew upon a sleeping flower, there lies A tear some dream has loosened from his brain." -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Adonais

Weeping Rock (Zion)

Another clipped her profuse locks, and threw     The wreath upon him, like an anadem     Which frozen tears instead of pearls begem; -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Adonais

Faint Words (Zion)

The water hears thy faintest word, And blushes into wine. -John Samuel Bewley Monsell (1811 - 1875), Mysterious Is Thy Presence, Lord

Glittering Sail (Zion)

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, That brings our friends up from the underworld, Sad as the last which reddens over one That sinks with all we love below the verge; So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. -Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892), Tears, Idle Tears

Noonday Dew (Zion)

And a light spear topped with a cypress-cone,     Round whose rude shaft dark ivy-tresses grew     Yet dripping with the forest's noonday dew, Vibrated, as the ever-beating heart     Shook the weak hand that grasped it. -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Adonais

Blind with Tears (Zion)

And Pleasure, blind with tears, led by the gleam         Of her own dying smile instead of eyes,--         Came in slow pomp;--the moving pomp might seem Like pageantry of mist on an autumnal stream. -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Adonais

Twinkle (Zion)

Hear the sledges with the bells--                     Silver bells! What a world of merriment their melody foretells!         How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,                 In the icy air of night!         While the stars that oversprinkle         All the heavens, seem to twinkle                 With a crystalline delight;             Keeping time, time, time,             In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells     From the bells, bells, bells, bells,                 Bells, bells, bells,--     From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells. -Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), The Bells

Sunshine Rain (Zion)

Flown, like a thought, until the morrow-day;     Blissfully havened both from joy and pain;     Clasped like a missal where swart Paynims pray;     Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain, As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again. -John Keats (1795-1821), The Eve of St. Agnes

Veils of Morning (Zion)

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet's wings. -William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), The Lake Isle of Innisfree

Silken Mystery (Hawaii)

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?     To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,     And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? -John Keats (1795-1821), Ode on a Grecian Urn

Burst of Life (Hawaii)

Through wood and stream and field and hill and ocean,     A quickening life from the Earth's heart has burst, -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Adonais

Elfland (Hawaii)

O, hark, O, hear! how thin and clear,     And thinner, clearer, farther going! O, sweet and far from cliff and scar     The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying, Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. -Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892), The Splendor Falls

So Much Melody (Hawaii)

In the green water, clear and warm, Susanna lay. She searched The touch of springs, And found Concealed imaginings. She sighed, For so much melody. Upon the bank, she stood In the cool Of spent emotions. She felt, among the leaves, The dew Of old devotions. She walked upon the grass, Still quavering. The winds were like her maids, On timid feet, Fetching her woven scarves, Yet wavering. A breath upon her hand Muted the night. She turned-- A cymbal crashed, And roraring horns. -Wallace Stevens (1879 - 1955), Peter Quince at the Clavier

Walls of Splendor (Shenandoah)

The splendor falls on castle walls     And snowy summits old in story; The long light shakes across the lakes,     And the wild cataract leaps in glory. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, Blow, bugle, answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. -Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892), The Splendor Falls

Awakening Trance (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

Too Lofty to Rage (Shenandoah)

Your destination and your destiny's A brook that was the water of the house, Cold as a spring as yet so near its source, Too lofty and original to rage. -Robert Frost (1874 - 1963), Directive

Grief (Shenandoah)

Grief made the young Spring wild, and she threw down     Her kindling buds; as if she Autumn were, Or they dead leaves; since her delight is flown,     For whom should she have waked the sullen Year? -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Adonais

Hide and Seek (Shenandoah)

And Pan by noon and Bacchus by night,     Fleeter of foot than the fleet-foot kid, Follows with dancing and fills with delight     The Mænad and the Bassarid; And soft as lips that laugh and hide The laughing leaves of the trees divide, And screen from seeing and leave in sight     The god pursuing, the maiden hid. -Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909), When the Hounds of Spring Are on Winter's Traces

Dancer (Shenandoah)

O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance? -William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Among School Children, 1927

Courtship (Shenandoah)

The purple petals, fallen in the pool, Made the black water with their beauty gay; Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool, And court the flower that cheapens his array. -Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), The Rhodora On Being Asked, Whence is The Flower?

Journey (Shenandoah)

Lying, robed in snowy white That loosely flew to left and right-- The leaves upon her falling light-- Through the noises of the night     She floated down to Camelot: And as the boat-head wound along The willowy hills and fields among, They heard her singing her last song,     The Lady of Shalott. -Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892), The Lady of Shalott

Sorrow's Springs (Shenandoah)

Márgarét, áre you gríeving Over Goldengrove unleaving? Leáves, líke the things of man, you With your fresh thoughts care for, can you? Ah! ás the heart grows older It will come to such sights colder By and by, nor spare a sigh Through worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie; And yet you will weep and know why. Now no matter, child, the name: Sórrow's spríngs áre the same. Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed What heart heard of, ghost guessed: It ís the blight man was born for, It is Margaret you mourn for. -Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 - 1889), Spring and Fall

Fishermen (Shenandoah)

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night     Sailed off in a wooden shoe-- Sailed on a river of crystal light,     Into a sea of dew. "Where are you going, and what do you wish?"     The old moon asked the three. "We have come to fish for the herring fish     That live in this beautiful sea;     Nets of silver and gold have we!" Said Wynken, Blynken, And Nod. -Eugene Field (1850 - 1895), Wynken, Blynken, and Nod

Escape (Shenandoah)

Shaken out long and clear upon the hill, No merry note, nor cause of merriment, But one telling me plain what I escaped And others could not, that night, as in I went. -Edward Thomas (1878 - 1917), The Owl

Ghostly Dance (Shenandoah)

With mop and mow, we saw them go,     Slim shadows hand in hand: About, about, in ghostly rout     They trod a saraband: -Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), The Ballad of Reading Gaol

Beauty and the Beast (Shenandoah)

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill, He holds her helpless breast upon his breast. -William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Leda and the Swan

Phantom Tryst (Shenandoah)

They glided past, they glided fast,     Like travellers through a mist: They mocked the moon in a rigadoon     Of delicate turn and twist, And with formal pace and loathsome grace     The phantoms kept their tryst. -Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), The Ballad of Reading Gaol

Passion and Conquest (Shenandoah)

Unwearied still, lover by lover, They paddle in the cold Companionable streams or climb the air; Their hearts have not grown old; Passion or conquest, wander where they will, Attend upon them still. -William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), The Wild Swans at Coole

Quiver (Shenandoah)

Come with bows bent and with emptying of quivers,     Maiden most perfect, lady of light, With a noise of winds and many rivers,     With a clamour of waters, and with might; -Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909), When the Hounds of Spring Are on Winter's Traces

Grief of Falling Water (Shenandoah)

For brief as water falling will be death, and brief as flower falling, or a leaf, brief as the taking, and the giving, breath; thus natural, thus brief, my love, is grief. -Conrad Aiken (1889 - 1973), And in the Human Heart (1940). Sonnet 6

Grief Forgotten (Shenandoah)

For winter's rains and ruins are over,     And all the season of snows and sins; The days dividing lover and lover,     The light that loses, the night that wins; And time remembered is grief forgotten, And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, And in green underwood and cover     Blossom by blossom the spring begins. -Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909), When the Hounds of Spring Are on Winter's Traces

Ripening Stream (Shenandoah)

The full streams feed on flower of rushes,     Ripe grasses trammel a travelling foot, The faint fresh flame of the young year flushes     From leaf to flower and flower to fruit; And fruit and leaf are as gold and fire, And the oat is heard above the lyre, And the hoofèd heel of a satyr crushes     The chestnut-husk at the chestnut-root. -Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909), When the Hounds of Spring Are on Winter's Traces

Glitter (Shenandoah)

The wild vine slips with the weight of its leaves, But the berried ivy catches and cleaves To the limbs that glitter, the feet that scare     The wolf that follows, the fawn that flies. -Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909), When the Hounds of Spring Are on Winter's Traces

Tears and Laughter (Shenandoah)

I am tired of tears and laughter, And men that laugh and weep; Of what may come hereafter For men that sow to reap: I am weary of days and hours, Blown buds of barren flowers, Desires and dreams and powers And everything but sleep. -Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909), The Garden of Proserpine

Fall Grief (Shenandoah)

Droop herbs and flowers;     Fall grief in showers;     "Our beauties are not ours" -Ben Johnson (1572-1637), Slow, Slow, Fresh Fount, Keep Time with My Salt Tears, from Cynthia's Revels

Time and Change (Shenandoah)

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! -John Greenleaf Whittier (1807 - 1892), Snow-Bound; A Winter Idyl

Where are you from? (Shenandoah)

Beautiful must be the mountains whence ye come,     And bright in the fruitful valleys the streams, wherefrom                 Ye learn your song: Where are those starry woods? O might I wander there,     Among the flowers, which in that heavenly air                 Bloom the year long! -Robert Bridges (1844-1930), Nightingales

Faith (Shenandoah)

Yet Love will dream, and Faith will trust, (Since He who knows our need is just,) That somehow, somewhere, meet we must. -John Greenleaf Whittier (1807 - 1892), Snow-Bound; A Winter Idyl

Deck the Season (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; -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Adonais

Remember (Shenandoah)

Remember me when I am gone away,     Gone far away into the silent land;     When you can no more hold me by the hand, Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay. Remember me when no more day by day     You tell me of our future that you planned:     Only remember me; you understand It will be late to counsel then or pray. Yet if you should forget me for a while     And afterwards remember, do not grieve:     For if the darkness and corruption leave A vestige of the thoughts that once I had, Better by far you should forget and smile     Than that you should remember and be sad. -Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-1894), Up-Hill

Smiles and Tears (Shenandoah)

I love thee with the breath. Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death. -Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861), How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways

Happy Nest (Shenandoah)

My heart is like a singing bird     Whose nest is in a watered shoot; -Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-1894), Up-Hill

Leafless Blooms (Shenandoah)

In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes, I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods, Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook, To please the desert and the sluggish brook. -Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), The Rhodora On Being Asked, Whence is The Flower?

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

If You Listen (Shenandoah)

The leaves will whisper there of her, and some, Like flying words, will strike you as they fall; But go, and if you listen she will call. Go to the western gate, Luke Havergal-- Luke Havergal. -Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935), Luke Havergal

Waking Dream (Shenandoah)

Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades     Past the near meadows, over the still stream,         Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep             In the next valley-glades:     Was it a vision, or a waking dream?         Fled is that music:--Do I wake or sleep? -John Keats (1795-1821), Ode to a Nightingale

The voice (Shenandoah)

Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me, Saying that now you are not as you were When you had changed from the one who was all to me, But as at first, when our day was fair. Can it be you that I hear? Let me view you, then, Standing as when I drew near to the town Where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then, Even to the original air-blue gown! Or is it only the breeze, in its listlessness Travelling across the wet mead to me here, You being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness, Heard to more again far or near?     Thus I; faltering forward,     Leaves around me falling, Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward,     And the woman calling. -Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), The Voice

Winter Grief (Yosemite)

Ah woe is me! Winter is come and gone,     But grief returns with the revolving year. The airs and streams renew their joyous tone; -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Adonais

Silver Shrine (Yosemite)

Ah, silver shrine, here will I take my rest     After so many hours of toil and quest,     A famished pilgrim--saved by miracle.     Though I have found, I will not rob thy nest     Saving of thy sweet self; if thouh think'st well To trust, fair Madeline, to no rude infidel. -John Keats (1795-1821), The Eve of St. Agnes

Mind's Work (Yosemite)

And when his hours are numbered, and the world Is all his own, retiring, as he were not, Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone, Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work, The frolic architecture of the snow. -Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), The Snow-Storm