Alps On Alps Arise

"A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
Fired at first sight with what the Muse imparts,
In fearless youth we tempt the heights of Arts;
While from the bounded level of our mind
Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind,
But, more advanced, behold with strange surprise
New distant scenes of endless science rise!
So pleased at first the towering Alps we try,
Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky;
The eternal snows appear already past,
And the first clouds and mountains seem the last:
But those attained, we tremble to survey
The growing labours of the lengthened way;
The increasing prospect tires our wandering eyes,
Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!"
 - A Little Learning by Alexander Pope, An Essay In Criticism, 1709. 

One of the first poems I memorized for a high school class, which is funny because I prefer the ocean and its open vistas from my childhood. but  like mountains in image and poetry.  As an adult, I've experienced boredom, depression, and danger in the Adirdondacks  Ferdinand Hodler's mountains suit me well, full of color and interest,  and arrayed at a discreet distance.   "First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is..."

Images:

1. Ferdinand Hodler - Genfersee with the Jura and a chain of clouds, 1911, Kunstmuseum, Basel.

2. Ferdinand Hodler - The Genfersee from Chexbre, 1905, Kunstmuseum, Basel.

3. Leon Bakst - A Roadside Shrine, 1924, private collection - Christies-Ltd.

4. Emil Cardinaux - Zermatt, 1908, Galerie Un Deux Trois, Geneva.