Reflections on Lake Windermere

A photoblog with a compilation of literary reflections of beautiful, serene
Lake Windermere, Cumbria, England

(photos taken during my holiday there in spring 2010)

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Listen where thou art sitting
Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,
In twisted braids of lilies knitting
The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair;
Listen for dear honour's sake,
Goddess of the silver lake,
Listen and save.
(John Milton)

Standing alone, as from a rampart’s edge,

I overlooked the bed of Windermere,

Like a vast river, stretching in the sun.

With exultation, at my feet I saw

Lake, islands, promontories, gleaming bays,

A universe of Nature’s fairest forms

Proudly revealed with instantaneous burst,

Magnificent, and beautiful, and gay.

(William Wordsworth)

The great fact in life, the always possible escape from dullness, was the lake.

The sun rose out of it; the day began there, it was like an open door that nobody could shut.

The land and all its dreariness could never close in on you.

You only had to look at the lake, and you knew you would soon be free.

(Willa Cather)

The white

bruised

ground-mist; the mirage

of a true lake.

(Denise Levertov)

The hills in their recumbent postures
Look into the silent lake.
(Philip Larkin)

Let the West Wind sleep on the Lake;
Speak silence with thy glimmering eyes,

And wash the dusk with silver.

(William Blake)

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart's core.

(William Butler Yeats)

This is my lake country.

(Henry David Thoreau)

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