Tyger! Tyger! Burning Bright

Watercolor study of a tiger

While working on this little watercolor sketch, I couldn't help but remember that famous poem about a tiger by William Blake from The Oxford Book of English Verse.  Here it is, so enjoy!  By the way, the word tiger is spelled tyger in this poem:

The Tyger

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,

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

                                                                                       ---William Blake

To add a little fun and variation of artistic experience into the theme of tigers, I will throw in the London Philharmonic's version of The Eye of the Tiger:

Live bravely and beautifully!