Morecambe Bay from near Silverdale

Diverting through Silverdale/Arnside in the vain hope of a sunset on my way back from Lancaster but it had nonetheless been a beautiful drive down from work in Kirkby Stephen in the early afternoon.

And in the world of interesting co-incidences I came across very different contexts for the idea of hope today, two of them here ....

Sherwin Nuland on 'Hope'

and,

Work without Hope - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

ALL Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair—
The bees are stirring—birds are on the wing—
And Winter, slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!
And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing,
Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.

Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow,
Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.
Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may,
For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away!
With lips unbrighten'd, wreathless brow, I stroll:
And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?
Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And Hope without an Object cannot live.

In retrospect wanted to add this to the January Challenge, idioms 9 - Apples and Oranges. Inspired by LoverofLight's  entry ... along the lines of high versus low tide being like apples and oranges, categories that are difficult to compare. This in turn prompted me to think of Milton's quote ... 'The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven..'  ..... the low and high water of the mind.