"Burning Bright In the Forest of the NIght"

 

 

The setting sun over Matanzas River is "burning bright in the forest of the night".  I can imagine the bright red light reflecting in the eyes of a tiger,.  The poem "Tyger" by William Blake is consider his most popular poem and has been used in lyrics, music, films and comic strips.

 

Copy A of William Blake's original printing of The Tyger, c. 1795.

 

 

The Tyger

by William Blake (1757–1827)

 

Tyger Tyger, burning bright, 

In the forests of the night; 

What immortal hand or eye, 

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp, 

Dare its deadly terrors clasp! 

When the stars threw down their spears

And water'd heaven with their tears: 

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,

In the forests of the night: 

What immortal hand or eye,

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

 

 

Blake has been quoted in a weekday strip of Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin recites a line from Blake's "The Tyger", while viewing a sleeping Hobbes, lightheartedly alluding to the lines "Tyger, Tyger, burning bright..."  

 

Dairy of a Sunset

 

It was a cloudy afternoon so I wanted to take photos of the sun setting over the marsh at Matanzas River.  Naturally, the clouds drifted away and became sparse as the sun was going down behind the trees in the distance.  There was a lot of birds in flight across the marsh and several sail boats had dock for the evening.  I like the scenery of the birds flying across the horizon against the sun.  There are sail boats at opposite ends of the sunset and the marsh reflected a reddish glow. 

Sunrise Matanzas River

These pictures were taken south of Crescent Bridge on a road to a fishing spot for locals.

Fall Sunset Matazanas River

I don't know if a fall sunset is any different then a summer one except it is not as hot.  In October the temperature drops to the high 70's and the breeze from the Intra costal feels refreshing. 

A Sea Life Morning

 

There was a hurricane in the Atlantic that hit Bermuda over the weekend.  The beaches were swarming with sea birds.  The population of birds was more then normal.  Dolphins were swimming in Matazanas River at Washington Oaks.  I sit and watch them for a few minutes.

Sunset over Matanzas River and Marsh

 

 

Waterway Park is a small park with nature trails and a view of Matanzas Fort, River and the marsh. The trees glowed with the evening sunlight.  The sky turned reddish orange over the green lush colors of the marsh just a spectacular scene.

Morning Sun Matanzas Marsh

Crossing Crescent Beach Bridge

On the drive to Crescent Beach, one must drive over the 206 Bridge.  The bridge was drawn so a cargo boat could pass through.  The storm clouds were resting on top of Matanzas River this morning.

Crossing the Bar

by Lord Alfred Tennyson

 

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,

   But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

      Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep

      Turns again home.

   Twilight and evening bell,

      And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell,

      When I embark;

   For tho' 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 crost the bar.

Sunset Matanzas River

 

I rushed to Crescent Beach area to get the sun setting.  It was only a matter of minutes that the sun sink behind the horizon. 

Sunny Days of Winter

  

This is how winter looks at Princess Place Preserve in Flagler County.  Matanzas River is icy blue under the winter sun and the hardwood trees leaves are a golden hue. These pictures were taken in January.  The rest of the country is under snow and ice.

Fiery Sky over Matanzas River

Matanzas River after sunset glows like a smoky fiery sky.  Reminds me of the book "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" by Carson McCullers.  A hometown girl like me from Columbus, Georgia. Listed below are some quotes from the book.

 

“The Heart is a lonely hunter with only one desire! To find some lasting comfort in the arms of anothers fire...driven by a desperate hunger to the arms of a neon light, the heart is a lonely hunter when there's no sign of love in sight!”

 

“In his face there came to be a brooding peace that is seen most often in the faces of the very sorrowful or the very wise. But still he wandered through the streets of the town, always silent and alone.”  

 

“I´m a stranger in a strange land.”  

 

“the way i need you is a loneliness i cannot bear.” 

 

 Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Carson McCullers (February 19, 1917 – September 29, 1967) was an American writer of novels, short stories, plays, essays and poetry. Her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, explores the spiritual isolation of misfits and outcasts of the U.S. South. Her other novels have similar themes and are all set in the South. She was born Lula Carson Smith in Columbus, Georgia, in 1917. Her mother was the granddaughter of a plantation owner and Confederate war hero. Her father, like Wilbur Kelly in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, was a watchmaker and jeweler of French Huguenot descent. From the age of ten, Lula took piano lessons. When she was fifteen, her father gave her a typewriter on which to compose stories.  Carson McCullers was one of the leading female writers of southern gothic fiction in the twentieth century. 

Her last published book, a collection of poems for children:  Sweet as a pickle and clean as a pig

Unfortunately, not many people will ever have a chance to read her poetry since the only copies are between $99 to $125 each.

 

"A Song to Myself: 35" by Walt Whitman

These pictures were taken at the Washington Oaks State Park and Beach.  It had been raining for 3 days and Matanzas River was high and winds were still strong. 

Song of Myself: 35

By Walt Whitman 1819–1892
 

Would you hear of an old-time sea-fight?

Would you learn who won by the light of the moon and stars?

List to the yarn, as my grandmother’s father the sailor told it to me.

 

Our foe was no skulk in his ship I tell you, (said he,)

His was the surly English pluck, and there is no tougher or truer, and never was, and never will be;

Along the lower’d eve he came horribly raking us.

 

We closed with him, the yards entangled, the cannon touch’d,

My captain lash’d fast with his own hands.

 

We had receiv’d some eighteen pound shots under the water,

On our lower-gun-deck two large pieces had burst at the first fire, killing all around and blowing up overhead.

 

Fighting at sun-down, fighting at dark,

Ten o’clock at night, the full moon well up, our leaks on the gain, and five feet of water reported,

The master-at-arms loosing the prisoners confined in the after-hold to give them a chance for themselves.

 

The transit to and from the magazine is now stopt by the sentinels,

They see so many strange faces they do not know whom to trust.

 

Our frigate takes fire,

The other asks if we demand quarter?

If our colors are struck and the fighting done?

 

Now I laugh content, for I hear the voice of my little captain,

We have not struck, he composedly cries, we have just begun our part of the fighting.

 

Only three guns are in use,

One is directed by the captain himself against the enemy’s mainmast,

Two well serv’d with grape and canister silence his musketry and clear his decks.

 

The tops alone second the fire of this little battery, especially the main-top,

They hold out bravely during the whole of the action.

 

Not a moment’s cease,

The leaks gain fast on the pumps, the fire eats toward the powder-magazine.

 

One of the pumps has been shot away, it is generally thought we are sinking.

 

Serene stands the little captain,

He is not hurried, his voice is neither high nor low,

His eyes give more light to us than our battle-lanterns.

 

Toward twelve there in the beams of the moon they surrender to us.

 

The Green Trail at Princess Preserve

 The Green Trail has an old wooden bridge crossing the creek flowing to the Matanzas River. There is a small island, a salt marsh, that the bridge connects to the mainland.  Along the trail were rustic benches surrounded by palms and oak trees with limbs hanging heavily with thick Spanish moss.

The Bridge Builder

by Will Allen Dromgoole 1860-1934

An old man going a lone highway,

Came, at the evening cold and gray,

To a chasm vast and deep and wide.

Through which was flowing a sullen tide

The old man crossed in the twilight dim,

The sullen stream had no fear for him;

But he turned when safe on the other side

And built a bridge to span the tide.

 

“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim near,

“You are wasting your strength with building here;

Your journey will end with the ending day,

You never again will pass this way;

You’ve crossed the chasm, deep and wide,

Why build this bridge at evening tide?”

 

The builder lifted his old gray head;

“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,

“There followed after me to-day

A youth whose feet must pass this way.

This chasm that has been as naught to me

To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be;

He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;

Good friend, I am building this bridge for him!”

Source: Father: An Anthology of Verse (EP Dutton & Company, 1931)
Will Allen Dromgoole was born in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. A prolific author who wrote novels, plays, and more than 8,000 poems, she was the author of the best-selling novel The Island of the Beautiful (1911).

'Eleonora' - A River of Silence

“From the dim regions beyond the mountains at the upper end of our encircled domain, there crept out a narrow and deep river, brighter than all save the eyes of Eleonora; and, winding stealthily about in mazy courses, it passed away, at length, through a shadowy gorge, among hills still dimmer than those whence it had issued. We called it the "River of Silence"; for there seemed to be a hushing influence in its flow. No murmur arose from its bed, and so gently it wandered along, that the pearly pebbles upon which we loved to gaze, far down within its bosom, stirred not at all, but lay in a motionless content, each in its own old station, shining on gloriously forever.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, Eleonora

A "Huckaberry Finn" River

"We catched fish and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness. It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big, still river, laying on our backs looking up at the stars, and we didn't ever feel like talking loud, and it warn't often that we laughed—only a little kind of a low chuckle. We had mighty good weather as a general thing, and nothing ever happened to us at all—that night, nor the next, nor the next."
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Huck and Jim, Chapter 12.

Reflections of "Red River Valley"

 

 

 

Red River Valley

From this valley they say you are going.

We will miss your bright eyes and sweet smile,

For they say you are taking the sunshine

That has brightened our pathway a while.

So come sit by my side if you love me.

Do not hasten to bid me adieu.

Just remember the Red River Valley,

And the one that has loved you so true.

Red River Valley is a folk song and cowboy music standard of controversial origins that has gone by different names—e.g., "Cowboy Love Song", "Bright Sherman Valley", "Bright Laurel Valley", "In the Bright Mohawk Valley", and "Bright Little Valley"—depending on where it has been sung.

Blue on Blue for a Rainy Day at the River

Took a walk on Shore Drive and it started raining.  The Matanzas River is beautiful in the rain. It makes up for not having trees with the brilliant color leaves of fall.  Different shades of blue you can't find in the mountains so it not so bad here.  Blue on Blue for a rainy day.  "River in the Rain, Sometimes at night you look like a long white train, winding your way away somewhere, River I love you. don't you care" (Roger Miller).