On Reading Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain Poem by Bernard Kennedy

Ascent of climb and taut limbs are required to slowly
scale this peak of literature.
Hans Castorp is your guide-a mouthpiece,
but the view, of hope and sickness,
of constant climb and.. well that is the view at last.
i read it first when eighteen years of age,
and taut limbs from rugby scrum run,
my brain readied with an aperitif,
Stendhal's Scarlet and Black,
whilst jersey was wine and gold.

when you climb a mountain-
Sugar Loaf, Dublin Sinai,
even Ararat, where Noah stopped, a feat is done.
Hold carefully this necessary tome.
In sickness and in health
till death doth depart.