Woes of Windermere

I’m afraid that I am not approaching this week’s scribbling in the usual spirit of passionate inquiry, but instead with a feeling of indignation. It appears that not even this country’s most revered and storied jewel of nature is held sacred, for in a chilling turn of events surely Blakean in its hellishness, certain repugnant organisations deem it appropriate (or even worse— whisper it— profitable) to dump large amounts of God-knows-what into the crystal waters of Windermere. That is, of course, Lake Windermere, a site of such natural beauty that it has inspired the most captivating and entrancing outpourings of verse from our most accomplished poets (works that these guilty parties, apparently hollow in their insides, could do with filling themselves with). Now, in this modern age, it appears that its timeless splendour can only inspire an outpouring of human filth.

But far from penning a vitriolic invective against such debase activities (partly because I doubt mere words, unless flowing from the quill-tip of Byron, could quite do their deplorableness justice), I will use this medium to instead reminisce on some of those past works that the Lake District has inspired, written by arguably the most quintessential of the Lake Poets, William Wordsworth. In turn, we may also wonder at those works that it could yet promote, if certain grubby hands would not exert their pernicious purpose on it first.

When one thinks of poems based in the Lake District, Wordsworth’s The Prelude immediately springs to mind. There is a clarity and vivacity to Wordsworth’s verse, achieved no doubt due to the fact that the work is derived from the poet’s own intimate, individual experience of the lakes growing up; it is a coming-of-age story of epic proportions, an epic that attends both to the highest reaches of nature’s power, and also to the humblest efforts of a young boy trying to figure out where he fits into that grand design. The principal exemplum of that narrative, of course, is young Wordsworth’s journey across a lake— not Windermere but Ullswater, a little to the north— as his magical ‘elfin pinnace’ takes him ‘heaving through the water like a swan’. Breaking that serenity, however, comes ‘a huge cliff’ upon the horizon, that ‘As if with voluntary power instinct/Upreared its head’. This is a monolith of nature’s majesty, a haunting reminder that, just when one feels that they have mastered the natural world, it is perfectly capable of crushing that bravado with an iota of its might. Nature allows us safe passage through its domain, but is also quite capable of turning against its beneficiaries if it is so inclined.

Perhaps it would be worth taking heed of this lesson, before one feels themselves comfortable enough to take advantage of nature’s charity.

‘Sweet Was the Walk’, another of Wordsworth’s poems, similarly speaks to the tumultuous relationship that man has with nature. Again, it speaks to the poet’s own personal experiences of wandering through the Lake District, and compares his enjoyment of the world he sees as a child to his interaction with that world as an adult. In youth, the walk along the lane was ‘sweet’ and the surrounding hedgerows were ‘Shagged with wild pale green tufts of fragrant hay’; with childish mischievousness, Wordsworth would ‘pluck the strawberries wild, unseen’ from these bushes before adult authority could catch him. But as an adult, he muses that the once picturesque scene now appears ‘quiet and dark’, and when he strays from the path, it is through ‘Thro’ tall, green, silent woods and ruins grey’. The world is no longer gilded by the golden light of the afternoon sun, but is now awash with the silvery glow of the ‘clouded moon’, as his day slowly wanes into night.

It seems that to grow up, though it is to develop into someone more knowledgeable, more capable, and more mature, is also to lose the childish, innocent wonder that we view the world with in youth. We progress into a state of greater understanding, but less joy.

For, as Wordsworth’s most famous poem underlines, despite this complex co-existence, it is joy that the natural world can bring to our lives more than fear or sadness. ‘Daffodils’ begins with the poet in a similar mood as we left him at the end of ‘Sweet Was the Walk’; he is in a state of melancholy and isolation, wandering ‘lonely as a cloud’ over the Lake District’s ‘vales and hills’. However, unlike that other poem, nature does not leave him adrift in this desultory daze, for it soon presents him with a ‘host of golden daffodils […] Fluttering and dancing in the breeze’. In the moment, their jocundity lifts Wordsworth’s spirits— after all, ‘A Poet could not but be gay’ when watching such a pleasant display— but the memory of the sight also gives him comfort in the long term, as whenever he finds himself in a ‘vacant’ or ‘pensive’ mood, the image of that scene returns to him and his ‘heart with pleasure fills,/And dances with the daffodils’. Specifically, Wordsworth speaks to the ‘wealth’ that this sprightly show has brought him; a reward far more beneficial than mere monetary profit, it is clear.

Thus, we see that the true joys of nature can only be reached when we live alongside it, coexisting with grace and respect, not greed and violence. If we can achieve this, then we will receive the greatest wealth that there is to find; the knowledge that we exist within a greater, transcendental system, that is both far larger than we could ever hope to comprehend, and yet would be far less wonderful if each of us were not part of it. When we approach the world with a vengeful hand, it has the power to curb our hubris with furious might— but if we wander with curious eyes and gracious hearts, it can soothe our woes and calm our turbulent spirits.

Those who take heed of this wisdom will surely be far better off for it. To those who refuse to accept it; have some respect, have some dignity, and if that is too much for you, have some shame.

Thank you for reading,