Luke King-Salter

Acrylic and ink on paper, 36.5 x 26.5 cm. 2021. SOLD

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Based on act 1, scene 2 of Byron's drama Manfred, in which Manfred contemplates the alps from the cliffs of the Jungfrau mountain. Some excerpts:

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       My Mother Earth!
  And thou fresh-breaking Day, and you, ye Mountains,
  Why are ye beautiful? I cannot love ye.
  And thou, the bright Eye of the Universe,
  That openest over all, and unto all
  Art a delight—thou shin'st not on my heart.
  And you, ye crags, upon whose extreme edge
  I stand, and on the torrent's brink beneath
  Behold the tall pines dwindled as to shrubs
  In dizziness of distance; when a leap,
  A stir, a motion, even a breath, would bring
  My breast upon its rocky bosom's bed
  To rest for ever—wherefore do I pause?
  I feel the impulse—yet I do not plunge;
  I see the peril—yet do not recede;
  And my brain reels—and yet my foot is firm

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       ***

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       Beautiful!
  How beautiful is all this visible world!
  How glorious in its action and itself!
  But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we,
  Half dust, half deity, alike unfit
  To sink or soar, with our mixed essence make
  A conflict of its elements, and breathe
  The breath of degradation and of pride,
  Contending with low wants and lofty will,
  Till our Mortality predominates

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       ***

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  The mists boil up around the glaciers; clouds
  Rise curling fast beneath me, white and sulphury,
  Like foam from the roused ocean of deep Hell,
  Whose every wave breaks on a living shore,
  Heaped with the damned like pebbles.—I am giddy.

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