Mountain Idylls, and Other Poems

On March 17, 1900, a premature mining explosion in Colorado robbed Alfred Castner King of his sight. Rather than surrender to darkness, King turned to poetry, crafting verses that illuminate the mountains he could no longer see. Mountain Idylls, and Other Poems is the result of that transformation: a collection of nature poetry born from loss and refined by solitude. King draws on his classical education in Latin and Greek, infusing his observations of mountain landscape with linguistic precision and quiet musicality. The title poems sing of high peaks and wilderness solitude, while other verses reveal a poet finding meaning after catastrophe, translating the visual world into language that endures. This is contemplative verse for readers who appreciate turn-of-the-century American poetry, nature writing born from hard-won stillness, and the strange alchemy by which personal tragedy becomes art.