Night on the Ocklawaha

Blinded with light, along the gloomy stream
The deft boat gropes its solitary way
From bend to bend, flashing a sudden ray
On strange wild scenes that makes them stranger seem;
Fantastic vistas formed of dusk and gleam,
Trees like carved ivory, golden moss for gray,
Depths dim as Lethe, glimpses bright as day,
Like the unreal landscape of a dream.
The shrill steam-trumpetings, recurring, break
The jungle silence; from the beacon's height
The fiery torches scatter many a spark
That falls and quenches in the flickering wake;
And in the forest, lonely, scared to flight,
I hear the limpkin calling in the dark.