Classic Poem

GENEVA BY MOONLIGHT

Geneva! colored with the glorious light,
That genius, from his magic fountain, throws;
The unrolled splendors of the sapphire night,
Are on the frostings of thine Alpine snows —
And o'er thy vales with emerald verdure bright,
And on thy glittering roofs — the picture shows
A scene that erst, beneath a tempest sky
In awful grandeur, met Childe Harold's eye!

There Jura lifts his bared brow to the storm,
With starlit diadem and icy zone,
And vassal clouds that throng around his form,
The misty drapery of his rock-piled throne —
While winds from out their lowly caverns warm,
Sweep coldly up with reverential moan,
To do high homage to their mountain king;
And then come rushing back on frozen wing!

And o'er the margin of the sloping shore
Leans the rude fisher, with extended line,
Regardless of the star-enamelled floor,
So placid in its workmanship divine —
But on his cottage-window gazing more,
Where the dim rushlight by his babes doth shine;
Deeming one look upon their closed eyes,
Worth all the splendors of a paradise.

How strangely mingled! all that's soft and grand,
And beautiful in nature, she bestows
On this loved spot with unretaining hand.
See how the moon-shafts shiver on the snows
Of Jura's hills! how the vine-covered land
Beneath their feet in dark luxuriance glows!
How still the water! how undimmed the air!
And over all the glorious heaven, how fair!