I reproduce below six of my earlier pen and wash sketches – all my own interpretations of visited scenes from the British Isles
Six Pen and Wash Sketches
Category Archives: Lake District
Stillness
‘Solitude’: Rydal Water, Cumbria, The Lake District, UK … Pen & Ink – WHB 1991 ©
STILLNESS
This stillness and the beauty all around me
Bring with them peace and grace for which I yearn;
For here among the lakes and mountains resting
I sense my hopes and dreams will now return.
For now I’ve reached a time when life has bitten,
Reminding me of pleasures once enjoyed;
Since lost in cares and daily obligations
How Nature can supplant and fill the void.
Its healing powers I know and cannot question;
They bring delights I cannot bear to miss.
They sing to me of other loves and places,
And speak to me of other times than this.
The Lake District
[ Photo Blog #48 ]
England, Cumbria, The Lake District
Never far from water in the Lake District
My photographs, taken several years ago on what would now be considered to be an old camera
Ambleside Pierhead on Lake Windermere
Evening at Ambleside Pierhead on Lake Windermere
Bridge crossing the River Derwent in Borrowdale
The Landing Jetty and Coniston Launch at Brantwood on Coniston Water
On Buttermere
The ‘Sentinels’ on Buttermere, the Lake District’s most photographed trees.
The Steam Yacht on Coniston Water
Derwentwater at Keswick
Thirlmere
Skelwith Force
Autumn colours near Skelwith Bridge, Ambleside
‘The Calm That Nature Breathes’
The Calm That Nature Breathes
Such beauty was a wondrous sight to see;
It held my gaze for many a moment then.
A burst of autumn colours and a view,
Exquisite as a verse from Nature’s pen.
It told of Wordsworth’s Lakeland in its glory,
Of luscious greens and tranquil lake so still;
While purpure mountains in the distance loom
And to the mellow view great calm instil.
A murmur in the breeze adorned the scene,
A susurrus in a silent land of ease.
It brought to me a sense of peace and love
Amidst those waters, hills and ancient trees.
The stillness and the quiet of evening time,
The colours then displayed before my sight,
Feelings of calm, of peace, and lasting love,
All came together then for my delight.
I shall remember this view for ever. I holidayed in 2001 at the Nannybrow , just north of Windermere and a few miles west of Ambleside in The Lake District, Cumbria.
One September day, still and fine, the water levels higher than usual after a period of prolonged rain, I captured the view from the terrace. I was transfixed for a long time, allowing the serenity and brilliance of the view to embed. To me it was an absolutely stunning experience. The panorama from my viewpoint gives majestic views down the beautiful Brathay Valley and towards the stunning scenery of the Langdales on the horizon. The photograph I took then introduces my poem. The scene gave me a sense of the powerful effect which the Lakeland scenery had on William Wordsworth. In particular it reminded me of the brief quotations below . . .
“A foretaste, a dim earnest, of the calm
That Nature breathes among the hills and groves.”
“. . . the sun in heaven . . . Beheld not vales more beautiful than ours”
From: ‘The Prelude: Book 1″:
The earth and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparell’d in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
From: “Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood”
“Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!”
From: Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802
I have used a quotation from ‘The Preludes’ as the title of my own short poem, written in the same pentameter structure as Wordsworth used in many of his poems.
Langdale Pikes – drawing by Arthur Wainwright
Roland's Ragbag 