Arve River, Switzerland, 11 December 2010 005.MOV

The Arve River, about a 10-minute walk upstream from where it flows past my apartment in Carouge, Switzerland. The Arve originates in the French Alps and appears to have inspired this poem, "Source of the Arve," by George MacDonald (1825-1905):

Hears't thou the dash of water, loud and hoarse,
With its perpetual tidings upward climb,
Struggling against the wind? Oh, how sublime!
For not in vain from its portentous source
Thy heart, wild stream, hath yearned for its full force,
But from thine ice-toothed caverns, dark as time,
At last thou issuest, dancing to the rime
Of thy outvolleying freedom! Lo, thy course
Lies straight before thee as the arrow flies!
Right to the ocean-plains away, away!
Thy parent waits thee, and her sunset dyes
Are ruffled for thy coming, and the gray
Of all her glittering borders flashes high
Against the glittering rocks!--oh, haste, and fly!

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