DE GUSTIBUS——

I am an unadventurous man, And always go upon the plan Of shunning danger where I can. And so I fail to understand Why every year a stalwart band Of tourists go to Switzerland, And spend their time for several weeks, With quaking hearts and pallid cheeks, Scaling abrupt and windy peaks. In fact, I'm old enough to find Climbing of almost any kind Is very little to my mind. A mountain summit white with snow Is an attractive sight, I know, But why not see it from below? Why leave the hospitable plain And scale Mont Blanc with toil and pain Merely to scramble down again? Some men pretend they think it bliss To clamber up a precipice Or dangle over an abyss, To crawl along a mountain side, Supported by a rope that's tied, —Not too securely—to a guide; But such pretences, it is clear, In the aspiring mountaineer Are usually insincere. And many a climber, I'll be bound, Whom scarped and icy crags surround, Wishes himself on level ground. So I, for one, do not propose, To cool my comfortable toes In regions of perpetual snows, As long as I can take my ease, Fanned by a soothing southern breeze, Under the shade of English trees. And anyone who leaves my share Of English fields and English air May take the Alps for aught I care!