Francis Turner Palgrave

Midnight at Geneva

THE azure lake is argent now
Beneath the pale moonshine:
I seek a sign of hope in heaven:
Fair Polestar! thou are mine.

A thousand other beacons blaze;
I follow thee alone
Beyond the shadowy Jura range,
The Jura, and the Rhone;

Beyond the purpling vineyards trim
Of sunny Clos Vougeot;
Beyond where Seine's brown waves beneath
The Norman orchards go;

Till, where the silver waters wash
The white-walled northern isle,
My heart outruns these laggart limbs
To the long-sighed-for smile.