"How my light is spent"

“On His Blindness”

 by John Milton (1608-1674)

When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodg’d with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,
“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: “God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.”

"A Dream within a Dream"

A Dream Within a Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

By Edgar Allen Poe

Close of Day No Longer Walks the Sky

Pity Me Not Because The Light Of Day

Pity me not because the light of day
At close of day no longer walks the sky;
Pity me not for beauties passed away
From field and thicket as the year goes by;
Pity me not the waning of the moon,
Nor that the ebbing tide goes out to sea,
Nor that a man's desire is hushed so soon,
And you no longer look with love on me.
This have I known always: Love is no more
Than the wide blossom which the wind assails,
Than the great tide that treads the shifting shore,
Strewing fresh wreckage gathered in the gales:
Pity me that the heart is slow to learn
What the swift mind beholds at ever turn.      

    

By Edna St. Vincent Millay

"Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines"

Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines

Light breaks where no sun shines;
Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart
Push in their tides;
And, broken ghosts with glowworms in their heads,
The things of light
File through the flesh where no flesh decks the bones.

A candle in the thighs
Warms youth and seed and burns the seeds of age;
Where no seed stirs,
The fruit of man unwrinkles in the stars,
Bright as a fig;
Where no wax is, the candle shows its hairs.

Dawn breaks behind the eyes;
From poles of skull and toe the windy blood
Slides like a sea;
Nor fenced, nor staked, the gushers of the sky
Spout to the rod
Divining in a smile the oil of tears.

Night in the sockets rounds,
Like some pitch moon, the limit of the globes;
Day lights the bone;
Where no cold is, the skinning gales unpin
The winter's robes;
The film of spring is hanging from the lids.

Light breaks on secret lots,
On tips of thought where thoughts smell in the rain;
When logics die,
The secret of the soil grows through the eye,
And blood jumps in the sun;
Above the waste allotments the dawn halts.


By Dylan Thomas                        

"Where Shadows Chases Light"

Where Shadow Chases Light

This is my delight,
thus to wait and watch at the wayside
where shadow chases light
and the rain comes in the wake of the summer.

Messengers, with tidings from unknown skies,
greet me and speed along the road.
My heart is glad within,
and the breath of the passing breeze is sweet.

From dawn till dusk I sit here before my door,
and I know that of a sudden
the happy moment will arrive when I shall see.

In the meanwhile I smile and I sing all alone.
In the meanwhile the air is filling with the perfume of promise.

By Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)

"A Light Exist In Spring"

A Light Exists In Spring

By Emily Dickinson

A light exists in spring
Not present on the year
At any other period.
When March is scarcely here

A color stands abroad
On solitary hills
That science cannot overtake,
But human naturefeels.

It waits upon the lawn;
It shows the furthest tree
Upon the furthest slope we know;
It almost speaks to me.

Then, as horizons step,
Or noons report away,
Without the formula of sound,
It passes, and we stay:

A quality of loss
Affecting our content,
As trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a sacrament.                         

In The Morning Glow

          

Flower-Gathering

By Robert Frost

I left you in the morning,

And in the morning glow,
You walked a way beside me
To make me sad to go.
Do you know me in the gloaming,
Gaunt and dusty gray with roaming?
Are you dumb because you know me not,
Or dumb because you know?

All for me And not a question
For the faded flowers gay
That could take me from beside you
For the ages of a day?
They are yours, and be the measure
Of their worth for you to treasure,
The measure of the little while
That I've been long away

As the Waters Cover the Sea

"Night and day I seek Your face
Long for You in the secret place
All I want in this life
Is to truly know You more

As the waters cover the sea
So Your love covers me
Guiding me on roads unknown
I trust in You alone

As the waters cover the sea
So Your love covers me
Guiding me on roads unknown
I trust in You alone..."

Lyrics: Michelle Annette Fragar

A Lonely Moor

Speak Of The North! A Lonely Moor

Speak of the North! A lonely moor
Silent and dark and tractless swells,
The waves of some wild streamlet pour
Hurriedly through its ferny dells.

Profoundly still the twilight air,
Lifeless the landscape; so we deem
Till like a phantom gliding near
A stag bends down to drink the stream.

And far away a mountain zone,
A cold, white waste of snow-drifts lies,
And one star, large and soft and lone,
Silently lights the unclouded skies.
                                

Charlotte Brontë

"Straining to Win the Sky"

" The tree is more than first a seed, then a stem, then a living trunk, and then dead timber. The tree is a slow, enduring force straining to win the sky. "
~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Wisdom of the Sands, translated from French by Stuart Gilbert

"Duties of the Wind Are Few"

The Duties of the Wind are Few


The duties of the Wind are few,
To cast the ships, at Sea,
Establish March, the Floods escort,
And usher Liberty.

The pleasures of the Wind are broad,
To dwell Extent among,
Remain, or wander,
Speculate, or Forests entertain.

The kinsmen of the Wind are Peaks
Azof - the Equinox,
Also with Bird and Asteroid
A bowing intercourse.

The limitations of the Wind
Do he exist, or die,
Too wise he seems for Wakelessness,
However, know not I.                      
                                               

Emily Dickinson

"The Wind Does Not Require the Grass"

"Why Do I Love" You Sir?

"Why do I love" You, Sir?
Because—
The Wind does not require the Grass
To answer—Wherefore when He pass
She cannot keep Her place.

Because He knows—and
Do not You—
And We know not—
Enough for Us
The Wisdom it be so—

The Lightning—never asked an Eye
Wherefore it shut—when He was by—
Because He knows it cannot speak—
And reasons not contained—
—Of Talk—
There be—preferred by Daintier Folk—

The Sunrise—Sire—compelleth Me—
Because He's Sunrise—and I see—
Therefore—Then—
I love Thee—

Emily Dickinson

Pyramid Lake Nested in the Rockies

There is so much beauty in all the Rocky Mountains from Colorado, Montana, and Canada's Alberta and British Columbia regions.  This is Pyramid Lake and island in Jasper National Park where many weddings are held. 

"Mountains Kiss High Heaven"

Love’s Philosophy

By Percy Bysshe Shelley    

       

The fountains mingle with the river

   And the rivers with the ocean,

The winds of heaven mix for ever

   With a sweet emotion;

Nothing in the world is single;

   All things by a law divine

In one spirit meet and mingle.

   Why not I with thine?—

See the mountains kiss high heaven

   And the waves clasp one another;

No sister-flower would be forgiven

   If it disdained its brother;

And the sunlight clasps the earth

   And the moonbeams kiss the sea:

What is all this sweet work worth

   If thou kiss not me?

"Clouds his Spirit Yearned"

The Wanderer


To see the clouds his spirit yearned toward so
Over new mountains piled and unploughed waves,
Back of old-storied spires and architraves
To watch Arcturus rise or Fomalhaut,

And roused by street-cries in strange tongues when day
Flooded with gold some domed metropolis,
Between new towers to waken and new bliss
Spread on his pillow in a wondrous way:

These were his joys.
Oft under bulging crates,
Coming to market with his morning load,
The peasant found him early on his road
To greet the sunrise at the city-gates,---

There where the meadows waken in its rays,
Golden with mist, and the great roads commence,
And backward, where the chimney-tops are dense,
Cathedral-arches glimmer through the haze.

Roche de Smet

The De Smet Range and Athabasca River in Jasper National Park, Alberta Canada.

De Smet Range Jasper National Park

The De Smet Range is located between the Athabasca River Valley and the Snake Indian River Valley east of Vine Creek. De Smet Range, Jasper Park, Alberta, Athabasca River.
       Panorama viewpoint: Roche a Perdrix. Can be seen from Highway 16 .          

"Western Lands Beneath the Sun"

Journeys End

In western lands beneath the Sun
The flowers may rise in Spring,
The trees may bud, the waters run,
The merry finches sing.

Or there maybe 'tis cloudless night,
And swaying branches bear
The Elven-stars as jewels white
Amid their branching hair.

Though here at journey's end I lie
In darkness buried deep,
Beyond all towers strong and high,
Beyond all mountains steep,
Above all shadows rides the Sun
And Stars for ever dwell:
I will not say the Day is done,
Nor bid the Stars farewell.

by J R R Tolkien

Yoho National Park

 I Travelled among Unknown Men    

By William Wordsworth   

        

I travelled among unknown men,

In lands beyond the sea;

Nor, England! did I know till then

What love I bore to thee.

'Tis past, that melancholy dream!

Nor will I quit thy shore

A second time; for still I seem

To love thee more and more.

Among thy mountains did I feel

The joy of my desire;

And she I cherished turned her wheel

Beside an English fire.

Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed,

The bowers where Lucy played;

And thine too is the last green field

That Lucy's eyes surveyed.

Maligne Canyon

A Slumber did my Spirit Seal
By William Wordsworth    
       

A slumber did my spirit seal;

I had no human fears:

She seemed a thing that could not feel

The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force;

She neither hears nor sees;

Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,

With rocks, and stones, and trees.

Pyramid Mountain

Pyramid Mountain is a mountain in Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada, named for its pyramid-like shape. James Hector named the mountain in 1859 due to its appearance from the Athabasca River valley on the eastern side of the peak.  The colors of the mountain look bronze with shades of red, orange and deep gray.

"Graceful Counterfeit of Flowers"

Flowers In Winter:  Painted upon a Porte Livre

HOW strange to greet, this frosty morn, 

  In graceful counterfeit of flowers, 

These children of the meadows, born 

  Of sunshine and of showers! 

 

How well the conscious wood retains        

  The pictures of its flower-sown home, 

The lights and shades, the purple stains, 

  And golden hues of bloom! 

 

It was a happy thought to bring 

  To the dark season’s frost and rime          

This painted memory of spring, 

  This dream of summer-time. 

 

Our hearts are lighter for its sake, 

  Our fancy’s age renews its youth, 

And dim-remembered fictions take          

  The guise of present truth. 

 

A wizard of the Merrimac,— 

  So old ancestral legends say,— 

Could call green leaf and blossom back 

  To frosted stem and spray.          

 

The dry logs of the cottage wall, 

  Beneath his touch, put out their leaves; 

The clay-bound swallow, at his call, 

  Played round the icy eaves. 

 

The settler saw his oaken flail        

  Take bud, and bloom before his eyes; 

From frozen pools he saw the pale, 

  Sweet summer lilies rise. 

 

To their old homes, by man profaned, 

  Came the sad dryads, exiled long,        

And through their leafy tongues complained 

  Of household use and wrong. 

 

The beechen platter sprouted wild, 

  The pipkin wore its old-time green 

The cradle o’er the sleeping child        

  Became a leafy screen. 

 

Haply our gentle friend hath met, 

  While wandering in her sylvan quest, 

Haunting his native woodlands yet, 

  That Druid of the West;        

 

And, while the dew on leaf and flower 

  Glistened in moonlight clear and still, 

Learned the dusk wizard’s spell of power, 

  And caught his trick of skill. 

 

But welcome, be it new or old,         

  The gift which makes the day more bright, 

And paints, upon the ground of cold 

  And darkness, warmth and light! 

 

Without is neither gold nor green; 

  Within, for birds, the birch-logs sing;          

Yet, summer-like, we sit between 

  The autumn and the spring. 

 

The one, with bridal blush of rose, 

  And sweetest breath of woodland balm, 

And one whose matron lips unclose          

  In smiles of saintly calm. 

 

Fill soft and deep, O winter snow! 

  The sweet azalea’s oaken dells, 

And hide the bank where roses blow, 

  And swing the azure bells!        

 

O’erlay the amber violet’s leaves, 

  The purple aster’s brookside home, 

Guard all the flowers her pencil gives 

  A life beyond their bloom. 

 

And she, when spring comes round again        

  By greening slope and singing flood 

Shall wander, seeking, not in vain, 

  Her darlings of the wood.

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892)