Stand here and look, and softly draw your breath
Lest the dread avalanche come crashing down!
How many leagues away is yonder town
Set flower-wise in the valley? Far beneath
Out feet lies summer; here a realm of death,
Where never flower has blossomed nor bird flown.
The ancient water-courses are all strown
With drifts of snow, fantastic wreath on wreath;
And peak on peak against the stainless blue
The Alps like towering campanili stand,
Wondrous, with pinnacles of frozen rain,
Silvery, crystal, like the prism in hue.
O tell me, love, if this be Switzerland --
Or is it but the frost-work on the pane?

--------

There's a family learning day at my younger son's Hebrew school today, then my in-laws are coming, and my co-writer at Trek Nation won't be around today so I have to work. Meaning that I will be lucky to have five minutes to myself before, oh, 10 p.m. There is something wrong when I am looking forward to folding laundry as a moment of potential peace.

I still have all those comments in my inbox. Will get them answered very soon, I promise.

We Two Kings of Middle-earth Are


A little Kingly bonding...


...ends, of course, with Aragorn demonstrating his dominance.