The Rhine
The rivers, like immense bugles, sing to the ocean the beauty of the earth,
The cultivation of the fields, the splendor of the cities and the glory of men of character,
Among all the rivers, I love the Rhine, wild, but majestic, violent, but without fury
He who wipes his tawny mane from the boats on the bridge, his loamy adventurer's beard.
It is a noble river, feudal, republican, imperial, worthy of being both German and French,
The Rhine is fast like the Rhône, wide like the Loire, like the steep-sided Meuse,
Historic like the Tiber, royal like the Danube, winding like the Seine after Paris,
Spangled with gold like an American river, covered with ghosts like an Asian river.
He descends from Constance to Rotterdam, from the land of eagles to the city of herrings,
From the city of popes, councils and emperors, to the trading post of bourgeois and merchants,
Main cultural and commercial axis in central Europe, it connects the Alps to the ocean,
Its banks are lost in the twilight, its waters sing in a peaceful and powerful roar.
Poetry in quatrains of l’ARIÉ…..JOIE
Inspired by Victor Hugo's Rhine in "Letters to a Friend" of 1842