There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

~ Lord Byron (1788 - 1824) Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, st. 178

 

Three Prize Pumpkins

"The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see."  ~ G. K. Chesterton

"To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive."  ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

 

"Not all who wander are lost" ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

 

 

 

 

"Happiness is as a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."


~ Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804 - 1864)  American novelist

"A good photograph is knowing where to stand." ~ Ansel Adams

"It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer.  You need less imagination to be a painter because you can invent things.  But in photography everything is so ordinary;  it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the extraordinary."

~ David Bailey

The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine and fifty swans.

The nineteenth Autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
Al suddenly mount
And scatter, wheeling, in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.

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.

But now they drift on the still water
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake
s edge or pool
Delight men's eyes, when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?

William Butler Yeats

Oh for a book and a shady nook,
   Either indoor or out,
With the green leaves whispering overhead,
   Or the street cries all about.
Where I may read all at my ease,
    Both of the new and old,
For a jolly good book whereon to look
    Is better to me than gold.

~ John Wilson 1889

[My source doesn't ID the poet as John Wilson; however, seems logical.  If anyone can verify, please do.]