Poetry and Belles Lettres
 

"A mountain becomes great as a human personality does, by extending its influence over the thoughts, words and actions of mankind," so said R. L. G.  Irving, an English mountaineer writing in 1940.  The thoughts and words inspired by mountains and the people who live there have been very important influences in the development of mountain environments in modern times. The Matterhorn, for example, is a disagreeable, tall pile of loose rock but thanks to literature and photography it has become one of the world's best known tourist symbols and is as important to the national economy of Switzerland as the watch industry itself.

Mountain-Portal gathers texts and verses useful in advocacy and in conveying the nature of the mountain heritage. Some will be classic, others contemporary.  Here is a sampling.

  from 7th century Japan:-  

Lo ! There towers the lofty peak of Fuji From between Kai and wave washed Suruya The clouds of heaven dare not cross it Nor the birds of the air soar above it. The snows quench the burning fires, The fires consume the falling snow. It baffles the tongue, it cannot be named It is a God mysterious  

-Manyoshu
 

from 19th century United States:-

Here are the roots of all the life of the lowlands with all their wealth of vineyard and grove,
and here more simply than elsewhere, is the eternal flux of nature manifested.

-John Muir, Oct 1872

from India:-

"Give back the forests to the people
That is the call of the mighty Himalaya!"

-Chipko slogan  1980s
 

from "Asian Desert" 19th century:-

Here the hills are earth’s bones,
Jutting up out of her,
Here she died long since
Here fell to decay,
Demolished by storm and rain,
Her skeleton hardened to stones
That grow not the flesh again.

-Dorothy Wellesley

from Ancient India  BC :-
A hundred divine epochs would not suffice to describe all the marvels of the Himalayas
-Sanskrit proverb

from Cumbria UK, 19th century
Mountains are the beginning  and end of all natural scenery.
-John Ruskin
 

from Palestine BC :-
I will lift up mine eyes to the hills
From whence cometh my help
My help cometh from the Lord
Who hath made heaven and earth

-Bible, Psalm 121 , Old Testament

from France 18th century

Upon the tops of mountains, the air being subtle and pure, we respire with greater freedom, our bodies are more active, our minds more serene, our pleasures much more moderate. Our meditations acquire a degree of sublimity from the grandeur of the objects around us.
 -J.J. Rousseau  - "La Nouvelle Heloise" 1760
 
 

 From the United States 1898
 

Thousands of tired, nerve shaken, over civilized people are beginning to find that going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life

-John Muir
 

from the European Alps 18th century

I can only speak of what I feel among mountains. It is ...very unpleasant. I cannot feel happy where I see everywhere weary men and their exhausting labour, which a harsh earth refuses to repay. The mountaineer who feels his trouble ...calls the plain "the good earth" and does not pretend to believe that the rocks he vainly moistens with his sweat is the better part allotted by Providence

-Chateaubriand in "A Journey to Mt. Blanc"

There are many poems less than sublime which recall mountain life and adventure.  One is more often parodied than most others, yet it was written when mountain travel did not avail itself of the rescue helicopter and the fear of high passes was still vivid.
Excerpts are quoted below.  It is by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow well known for "Hiawatha" and is called:-

Excelsior

The shades of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,
A banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!
His brow was sad; his eye beneath,
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath,
And like a silver clarion rung
The accents of that unknown tongue,
Excelsior!
In happy homes he saw the light
Of household fires gleam warm and bright;
Above, the spectral glaciers shone,
And from his lips escaped a groan,
Excelsior!
"Try not the Pass!" the old man said:
"Dark lowers the tempest overhead,
The roaring torrent is deep and wide!
And loud that clarion voice replied,
Excelsior!
"Oh stay," the maiden said, "and rest
Thy weary head upon this breast!"
A tear stood in his bright blue eye,
But still he answered, with a sigh,
Excelsior!
"Beware the pine-tree's withered branch!
Beware the awful avalanche!"
This was the peasant's last Good-night,
A voice replied, far up the height,
Excelsior!
At break of day, as heavenward
The pious monks of Saint Bernard
Uttered the oft-repeated prayer,
A voice ,
A voice cried through the startled air,
Excelsior!
A traveller, by the faithful hound,
Half-buried in the snow was found,
Still grasping in his hand of ice
That banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!
There in the twilight cold and gray,
Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay,
And from the sky, serene and far,
A voice fell, like a falling star,
Excelsior!
http://www.concordance.com/links.htm
 

Mallory´s body found, Knoydart rescued, Himalayan glaciers-alarm grows, Everest Forests-a Sherpa's view,
The epic of Mt. Everest, The state of the world mountains, My first summer in Sierra
Poems and Belles letters, The Yellow brick Road - Polemic, Paradise fishing at Autannes, Traditional Solar Science,Dogs on high, Obituary, Esme Percy, Web-sites for browsing
Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan on sustainable mountain tourism
P.B. Stone on mountains under pressure (general overeview of so-called Mountain problematique

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