"The Mountain" is a 1952 poem by Elizabeth Bishop. First published in Poetry magazine, this work was not included in any volume of poetry during Bishop's lifetime. It is written from the perspective of a speaker trying to make sense of herself and her surroundings in her old age. Throughout the poem, the speaker describes both the disorienting deterioration of her own body and senses, and the increasing separation she feels from younger generations.
Throughout, Bishop uses the symbol of a mountain to represent both the speaker and her condition of old age. She expands this symbol into an extended metaphor, replete with a great deal of natural imagery to convey the speaker's sense that old age is a treacherous and even dangerous venture.
This poem consists of nine quatrains, or four-line stanzas. It is written in free verse, without a set rhyme scheme or meter. However, it is evidently influenced by the villanelle form: like a villanelle, this poem concludes each stanza with one of two refrains, which recur and alternate throughout the work.
