Saturday, September 28, 2019

Sunset Valley by A.C. Pinkney, September 1919

From the Brevard News, Friday, Sept. 26, 1919

Sunset Valley

By A.C. Pinkney

The very name is suggestive of green trees, glowing skies and blue, blue hills!

One afternoon in late September we took the trail to Sunset Valley—along a road of clay so red it seemed to have a reflected glow which was no doubt caused by the ardent kisses of old Sol, who is at his best in the mountains. We passed a few mountain cabins, with their over-flowing inmates and bright hued flowers. Next appeared a quaint old farmhouse with a view calculated to broaden the narrow soul on every side.

After some miles of road, lined with tall sentinels of graceful queen of the meadow, golden rod and deep purple iron weed, we came around a sharp curve and the old mill came into view. The old mill, there gray in the distance, with its great wooden wheel, so suggestive of latent power! A few yards further and our ears caught the trinkling (what was written) of running water, one of nature’s offerings to man—and surely no sweeter sound can come to human ears! Just before we reached the mill, we stopped to examine the great hand-bellows and forge, relics of primitive days—bringing up pictures of the times when man indeed earned his bread by the sweat of his brow. We walked on for a distance, ascending a hill, at the top of which we turned and beheld “Sunset Valley” in all its glory, a green knob in the foreground, with cattle grazing peacefully, the old mill in all its picturesque beauty, and beyond, and always beyond the dim, mysterious hills, rising higher and ever higher, until they seemed to touch the sky.

The streams go safely flowing down
    to Sunset Valley!
Nothing earthly seems to frown
   On Sunset Valley.
The winds are cool and soft and sweet
    In Sunset Valley;
The wild flowers gather at your feet
    In Sunset Valley.
The old world seems so far away
    In Sunset Valley;
Oh! I could worship every day
    In Sunset Valley.

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