Month: November 2017

Do you know the world’s white roof-tree — do you know that windy rift
Where the baffling mountain-eddies chop and change?
Do you know the long day’s patience, belly-down on frozen drift,
While the head of heads is feeding out of range?
It is there that I am going, where the boulders and the snow lie,
With a trusty, nimble tracker that I know.
I have sworn an oath, to keep it on the Horns of Ovis Poli,
And the Red Gods call me out and I must go!

by Rudyard Kipling 1897

There is much comfort in the high hills
And an easing of the heart.
We look upon them, and our nature fills
With loftier images from their life apart.
They set our feet on curves of freedom, bent
To snap the circles of our discontent.

Mountains are moods; of larger rhythm and line,
Moving between the external mode and mine.
Moments of thought, of which I too am part,
I lose in them my instant of brief ills,
There is a great easing of the heart,
And cumulance of comfort on high hills.

by Geoffrey Winthrop Young

Ye are bound for the mountains?
Ah! With you let me go,
Where you cold distant barrier
The east range of snow
Through its loose clouds lifts dimly
Its white peaks in air:
How deep is the stillness:
Ah! Would I were there.

Extract from The Parting, by Matthew Arnold

I have not lost the magic of long days,
I live them, dream them still
Still I am a master of the starry ways,
And freeman of the hills;
Shattered my glass, ere half the sands had run.
I hold the heights, I hold the heights, I won.

Mine still the hope that haileth me from each height
Mine the unresting flame.
With dreams I charmed each doing to delight;
I charm my rest the same.
Severed my skin, ere half the strands were spun
I keep the dreams, I keep the dreams I won.

What if I live no more those kingly days?
Their night sleeps with me still.
I dream my feet upon the starry ways;
My heart rests in the hill.
I may not grudge, the little left undone.
I hold the heights, I keep the dreams I won.

by Geoffrey Winthrop Young

The human lives are enjoying,
The birds and creatures are enjoying
The branches of trees are tossing,
The waters in rivers and rivulets flowing.
Moon, stars in sky are shining.
Some are kissing, some are hugging (into darkness of night.)
You and I are far away only waiting.

by P.K.K. August 13 1980

We stood breath less on the peak
In that eternity of mountains;
You now claim as your own.
Wrapped in a thousand years of wind;
We stood and listened
To the music of the earth
Below us rivers
Silver gleaming
Tuned by the sun to liquid gold,
And fields of corn
And sparkling cities.
Fair courts a-shimmer
With flaming blossom,
With humming birds
And dragon flies
And honeyed fruit as paliered on the wall.

But
The silver and gold have turned to water,
The once-rich fields be barren and waste;
Instead of garden-skeletal forest
And beggars at the city gate.
Now you astride the eternity of mountains
Wrapped in a thousand years of wind
You listen to the music
While I
Can hear no longer

by Anna Ranasinghe 1970

Great things are done when man and mountains meet.
This is not done by jostling in the street.

An extract from ‘The Poetical Works‘, by William Blake

Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there’s nothing else to gaze on,
Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore,
Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the blinding sunsets blazon
Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar?
Have you swept the visioned valley with the green stream streaking through it,
Searched the Vastness for something you have lost?
Have you strung your soul to silence? Then for God’s sake go and do it;
Hear the challenge, learn the lesson, pay the cost.

by Robert Service

Though hundreds of men have scaled
up it’s back,
It forever retains it’s pristine beauty
and virginity!
Clad in its eternal mantle of pure
whiteness,
Stands that lofty citadel of ice and
snow,
A place where the very God’s dwell!

On reaching it’s summit up high,
It is not the peak we only conquer
each time;
But we conquer ourselves!
Displaying indomitable will and
human spirit,
To rise above all earthly fetters!
To aspire and to reach,
Where only the brave, the courageous,
and the stout-hearted,
Do dare, and forever excel!

by Raj Nandy
New Delhi 16 Mar 08

A diamond on the crown of Himalaya, the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan
A piece of heaven on the earth, the beauty of which will fail any poet’s imagination.
A country that represents genuine peace and tranquility
A country that can teach what is meant by natural beauty.
Equally nice are the people who live in this beautiful place
People who represent humility, dignity and grace.
The country is a spectacular blending of modernity and tradition
Where modern technology happily co-exists with age-old culture and convention.
Making regular visits to this land has become my favourite passion
I love you, The Sandalwood Ornamented Kingdom of Bhutan.

by Raja Basu

Majestic you are,
Awe inspiring is your peaks,
Touching the sky,
Meandering through your rocky terrain is
Many a Holy River,
Causing the rise of ancient civilizations,
Beauty manifested in magnanimity;
Dotted with Shrines,
Where Silence is worshiped,
And Sanctity is preserved.

by Debabani Chandra

There’s a one-eyed yellow idol
To the north of Kathmandu;
There’s a little marble cross below the town;
And a brokenhearted woman
Tends the grave of ‘Mad’ Carew,
While the yellow god for ever gazes down.

Extract from The Green Eye of the Yellow God, by J. Milton Hayes