View from a Window

Tags

acrylics, garden shed, topiary, view from a window

…in acrylics.  By Candia Dixon-Stuart.

Exhortation

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William Dunbar, Scottish Makar, Scottish poet, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, exhortation, love thy neighbour, Ten Commandments

William Dunbar 15th century Scottish poet. 

Photo by Stephen C Dickson (Wikimedia)

Scottish National Portrait Gallery

 

To God be humble,

to thy friend be kind

and with thy neighbour, gladly lend and borrow;

his chance tonight,

it may be thine tomorrow.

Self-Isolation

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Duddingston Loch, Edinburgh, National Portrait Gallery, Rev Robert Walker, self-isolation, skating

…can still be fun. 

Think of the Rev Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston Loch

(National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh).

Willows

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Cotswolds, Gloucestershire, lockdown, reflections, willows

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart.  All Rights reserved.  (Taken before lockdown)

Social Distancing (Alpaca style)

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alpacas, coronavirus, social distancing

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Before Lockdown

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Coronavirus Pandemic, Cotswolds, lockdown, Oxfordshire, riding, White Horse Hill

Rider on White Horse Hill, Oxfordshire

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart

‘Max’ RIP

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acrylic painting, cats, pets

Painting in acrylics by Candia.  Not my cat, but he was loved by everyone round here.

White Horse Hill, Oxfordshire

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Oxfordshire, White Horse Hill, The Manger

Or, to be accurate – The Manger, where the White Horse comes to graze at night.

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart.  All Rights Reserved.

Poem from a Time of Trial

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atheist, blame game, Kipling, natural consequences, Natural Theology, plague, theology

Natural Theology

by Rudyard Kipling

Primitive
I ate my fill of a whale that died
 And stranded after a month at sea.
 .
 .
 .
There is a pain in my inside.
 Why have the Gods afflicted me?
Ow! I am purged till I am a wraith!
 Wow! I am sick till I cannot see!
What is the sense of Religion and Faith :
 Look how the Gods have afflicted me!


 Pagan

How can the skin of rat or mouse hold
 Anything more than a harmless flea?.
 .
 .
The burning plague has taken my household.
 Why have my Gods afflicted me?
All my kith and kin are deceased,
 Though they were as good as good could be,
I will out and batter the family priest,
 Because my Gods have afflicted me!


Medi/Eval

My privy and well drain into each other
 After the custom of Christendie.
 .
 .
 .
Fevers and fluxes are wasting my mother.
 Why has the Lord afflicted me?
The Saints are helpless for all I offer--
 So are the clergy I used to fee.
Henceforward I keep my cash in my coffer,
 Because the Lord has afflicted me.


 Material

I run eight hundred hens to the acre
 They die by dozens mysteriously.
 .
 .
 .
I am more than doubtful concerning my Maker,
 Why has the Lord afflicted me?
What a return for all my endeavour--
 Not to mention the L.
 S.
 D!
I am an atheist now and for ever,
 Because this God has afflicted me!


Progressive

Money spent on an Army or Fleet
 Is homicidal lunacy.
 .
 .
 .
My son has been killed in the Mons retreat,
 Why is the Lord afflicting me?
Why are murder, pillage and arson
 And rape allowed by the Deity?
I will write to the Times, deriding our parson
 Because my God has afflicted me.


 Chorus

We had a kettle: we let it leak:
 Our not repairing it made it worse.
We haven't had any tea for a week.
 .
 .
 The bottom is out of the Universe!

Conclusion

This was none of the good Lord's pleasure,
 For the Spirit He breathed in Man is free;
But what comes after is measure for measure,
 And not a God that afflicteth thee.
As was the sowing so the reaping
 Is now and evermore shall be.
Thou art delivered to thine own keeping.
 Only Thyself hath afflicted thee!

Last Rembrandt Post for Now

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Ashmolean, Good Samaritan, oman at the Well, Oxford, Rembrandt, self-portrait

From ‘The Young Rembrandt’ exhibition @ The Ashmolean, Oxford.