[syndicate] Alp

[Alan Sondheim]

Alp

   I live not in myself, but I become
   Portion of that around me; and to me
   High mountains are a feeling, but the hum
   Of human cities torture: I can see
   Nothing to loathe in nature, save to be
   A link reluctant in a fleshy chain,
   Chased among creatures, when the soul can flee,
   And with the sky, the peak, the heaving plain
Of ocean, or the stars, mingle, and not in vain.

[...] http://www.asondheim.org/motheralp.mp4 [...]

   But let me quit man's works, again to read
   His Maker's, spread around me, and suspend
   This page, which from my reveries I feed,
   Until it seems prolonging without end;
   The clouds above me to the white Alps tend,
   And I must pierce them, and survey whate'er
   May be permitted, as my steps I bend
   To their most great and growing region, where
The earth to her embrace compels the powers of air.

(Byron, Childe Harold)