Song of the sea

The sky is vast, and the plains roll on for miles.
The scent of earth and grass are all around me.
There's beauty here, it's true, and yet
there is a part of me which longs to trade
this sea of green for one of blue.

Uncertainty

"...How long she lay there she knew not. She had lost count of time; dreamily she looked up at the moonlit sky, and listened to the monotonous roll of the waves.

The invigorating scent of the sea was nectar to her wearied body, the immensity of the lonely cliffs was silent and dreamlike. Her brain only remained conscious of its ceaseless, its intolerable torture of uncertainty.

She did not know!--"

--from Baroness Orczy's The Scarlet Pimpernel

The feast of Saint Anselm

"I want to understand something of the truth which my heart believes and loves. I do not seek thus to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order that I may understand."

--Saint Anselm, whom Dante places among the spirits of light and power in the Sphere of the Sun.

The music of the Elves

"I thought that Elves were all for moon and stars; but this is more elvish than anything I ever heard tell of. I feel as if I was inside a song, if you take my meaning."

--Sam to Frodo in Lothlorien, in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings

The music of Lothlorien: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3TglKQnl3Q

In Exmoor...

"And through the dewy meadow's breast, fringed with shade, but touched on one side with the sun-smile, ran the crystal water, curving in its brightness like diverted hope."

--from R. D. Blackmore's Lorna Doone

Outlaws...

"They said they would rather be outlaws for a year in Sherwood Forest than President of the United States forever."

--from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

A Walking Song

"Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate,
And though we pass them by today,
Tomorrow we may come this way
And take the hidden paths that run
Towards the Moon or to the Sun."

--sung by Frodo, Sam, and Pippin as they set off for Buckland in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings