UKH

looking for Climbing/ Mountain themed poetry or songs

I've got a feeling that songs were covered in a post fairly recently.

There's a nice poem here:

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/off_belay/these_are_my_riches_poem_aut...

And here is one of my favourites:

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

Mine still the hope that hailed me from each height,
mine the unresting flame.
With dreams I charmed each doing to delight;
I charm my rest the same.
Severed my skein, 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.

Geoffrey Winthrop Young (after his leg was amputated during WW1) - originally published in April and Rain, 1923 (but this quote from Hankinson, A., 1995 p234) Geoffrey Winthrop Young, Hodder & Stoughton, London

Are you looking for anything in particular?

look for Andrew Greig's poems (eg Men on Ice) & Tom Patey's songs

Check out David Wilson's new collection The Equilibrium Line, poems inspired by climbing. I've reviewed it for a forthcoming issue of Climber magazine. Also Helen Mort's No Map Could Show Them. Probably the most notable climber poet is Ed Drummond: his collection of poetry and prose, A Dream of White Horses, is a must. David Craig is also worth searching out, along with Andrew Geig, as already mentioned. 

Couple of (very) different suggestions:

Nan Sheperd - In the Cairngorms

P. B. Shelley - 'Mont Blanc'

Hanshan's Cold Mountain poems, translated by Gary Snyder, among others.

Philip Larkin   Talks in  the view, of the snow caps , the mist the exposed drops . Retreating or turning back, as well as personal fitnesses.

I copied this poem by Dave Bathgate from a collection of mountain related poetry many years ago. Any one remember where it was published ?

For Tony, Dougal, Mick. Bugs, Nick, et al

How can we justify a life,

Spent sitting at the coal?

Or roaring at the stadium,

Foul ref, off side, goal.

And how do we justify the time

Spent sitting at the set?

Or in the boozer sinking pints,

Or placing one more bet.

And tell us how we justify,

The attitude today?

That even if we shirk the work,

We still expect the pay?

How can we justify a life

Without a plan or vision?

With never a constructive thought

No risks and no ambition?

And yet we sit and criticise

The spirit wild and free

Who climbs the highest mountains

And sails the cruellest seas.

Who plumbs the deepest oceans

Or explores the darkest caves.

Or has the crazy notion

to surf the biggest wave.

Blinded by security

We say they must be fools,

To shoot white water rapids,

Or fight fast whirlpool

But a true appreciation

Of life we will never know,

Till we have pushed our minds and bodies

As far as they can go.

And if death should overtake us.

Then death must have been due,

But there is no sting in death,

No sting for you.

Dave Bathgate.

This is soooo dated but still works for me:

I've been over Snowdon, I've slept upon Crowdon
I've camped by the Waynestones as well
I've sunbathed on Kinder, been burned to a cinder
And many more things I can tell
My rucksack has oft been me pillow
The heather has oft been me bed
And sooner than part from the mountains
I think I would rather be dead

Ch: I'm a rambler, I'm a rambler from Manchester way
I get all me pleasure the hard moorland way
I may be a wageslave on Monday
But I am a free man on Sunday

The day was just ending and I was descending
Down Grinesbrook just by Upper Tor
When a voice cried "Hey you" in the way keepers do
He'd the worst face that ever I saw
The things that he said were unpleasant
In the teeth of his fury I said
"Sooner than part from the mountains
I think I would rather be dead"

He called me a louse and said "Think of the grouse"
Well i thought, but I still couldn't see
Why all Kinder Scout and the moors roundabout
Couldn't take both the poor grouse and me
He said "All this land is my master's"
At that I stood shaking my head
No man has the right to own mountains
Any more than the deep ocean bed

I once loved a maid, a spot welder by trade
She was fair as the Rowan in bloom
And the bloom of her eye watched the blue Moreland sky
I wooed her from April to June
On the day that we should have been married
I went for a ramble instead
For sooner than part from the mountains
I think I would rather be dead

So I'll walk where I will over mountain and hill
And I'll lie where the bracken is deep
I belong to the mountains, the clear running fountains
Where the grey rocks lie ragged and steep
I've seen the white hare in the gullys
And the curlew fly high overhead
And sooner than part from the mountains
I think I would rather be dead.

- Manchester Rambler, Ewan McColl

Also, McColl’s The Joy of Living has a verse or two on mountains. 

Good (Mc)call.

The language and references might be dated but the sentiment and the fight for access rights certainly isn't.

Only a hill: earth set a little higher

Above the face of the earth: a larger view

Of little fields and roads: a little nigher

To clouds, and silence: what is that to you?

Only a hill: but all of life to me,

Up there, between the sunset and the sea.

A Hill, Geoffrey Winthrop Young

Helen Hamilton had many including The Spectre of Ben Macdhui. Cant find much online though and the books are very rare.

https://allpoetry.com/Helen-Hamilton

There was a short climbing version of the rambler song, namely ...

Oh I roam at will over valley and hill

And I camp where the bracken lies deep

Oh I throw stones at hikers and good motor bikers

But most of the time I just sleep

For my ruck-sac contains an air-pillow

And also a soft lilo bed

For sooner than climb up these mountains I love

I think I would rather be dead.

I’m a climber, I’m a climber from Manchester way

I get all my pleasures the rock climbing way

I sleep ‘neath my work-bench on Mondays

And bask ‘neath the low crags on Sundays.

I think that's set in Langdale, isn't it?

That's a very short version. Tom Patey's book One Man's Mountains contains the unabridged version.

Helen Mort Black recently recited a couple of her climbing themed poems on an episode of Jam Crack.

Some excellent suggestions here, and I especially second the suggestions of Helen Mort's collection "No Map Could Show Them" and the Gary Snyder translations of the Cold Mountain poems of Han Shan.  Gary Snyder is a great poet/writer in his own right too.  Here's one of my favourites of his:

John Muir on Mt Ritter.

After scanning its face again and again,

I began to scale it, picking my holds

With intense caution. About half-way

To the top, I was suddenly brought to

A dead stop, with arms outspread

Clinging close to the face of the rock

Unable to move hand or foot

Either up or down. My doom

Appeared fixed. I MUST fall.

There would be a moment of

Bewilderment, and then,

A lifeless rumble down the cliff

To the glacier below.

My mind seemed to fill with a

Stifling smoke. This terrible eclipse

Lasted only a moment, when life blazed

Forth again with preternatural clearness.

I seemed suddenly to become possessed

Of a new sense. My trembling muscles

Became firm again, every rift and flaw in

The rock was seen as through a microscope,

My limbs moved with a positiveness and precision

With which I seemed to have

Nothing at all to do.