I held but slight communion; but instead
My joy was in the Wilderness, to breathe
The difficult air of the iced mountain’s top,
Where the birds dare not build, nor insect’s wing
Flit o’er the herbless granite; or to plunge
Into the torrent, and to roll along
On the swift whirl of the new breaking wave
Of river-stream, or ocean, in their flow.
Excerpt from Manfred,
poem located in the Bernese Alps
Lord Byron
