"A journey in an Italian June is a conscription; and if I was not
the most constant of men, I should now be swimming from the Lido,
instead of smoking in the dust of Padua. Should there be letters
from England, let them wait my return. And do look at my house and
(not lands, but) waters, and scold;--and deal out the monies to
Edgecombe[32] with an air of reluctance and a shake of the
head--and put queer questions to him--and turn up your nose when he
answers.
"Make my respect to the Consules--and to the Chevalier--and to
Scotin--and to all the counts and countesses of our acquaintance.
"And believe me ever
"Your disconsolate and affectionate," &c.
[Footnote 32: A clerk of the English Consulate, whom he at this time
employed to control his accounts.]
* * * * *
As a contrast to the strange levity of this letter, as well as in
justice to the real earnestness of the passion, however censurable in
all other respects, that now engrossed him, I shall here transcribe some
stanzas which he wrote in the course of this journey to Romagna, and
which, though already published, are not comprised in the regular
collection of his works.
"River[33], that rollest by the ancient walls,
Where dwells the lady of my love, when she
Walks by thy brink, and there perchance recalls
A faint and fleeting memory of me;
"What if thy deep and ample stream should be
A mirror of my heart, where she may read
The thousand thoughts I now betray to thee,
Wild as thy wave, and headlong as thy speed!
"What do I say--a mirror of my heart?
Are not thy waters sweeping, dark, and strong?
Such as my feelings were and are, thou art;
And such as thou art were my passions long.
"Time may have somewhat tamed them,--not for ever;
Thou overflow'st thy banks, and not for aye
Thy bosom overboils, congenial river!
Thy floods subside, and mine have sunk away,
"But left long wrecks behind, and now again,
Borne in our old unchanged career, we move;
Thou tendest wildly onwards to the main,
And I--to loving _one_ I should not love.
"The current I behold will sweep beneath
Her native walls and murmur at her feet;
Her eyes will look on thee, when she shall breathe
The twilight air, unharm'd by summer's heat.
"She will look on thee,--I have look'd on thee,
Full of that thought; and, from that moment, ne'er
Thy waters could I dream of, name, or see,
Without the inseparable sigh for her!
"Her bright eyes will be imaged in thy stream,--
Yes! they will meet the wave I gaze on now:
Mine cannot witness, even in a dream,
That happy wave repass me in its flow!
"The wave that bears my tears returns no more:
Will she return by whom that wave shall sweep?--
Both tread thy banks, both wander on thy shore,
I by thy source, she by the dark-blue deep.
"But that which keepeth us apart is not
Distance, nor depth of wave, nor space of earth.
But the distraction of a various lot,
As various as the climates of our birth.
"A stranger loves the lady of the land,
Born far beyond the mountains, but his blood
Is all meridian, as if never fann'd
By the black wind that chills the polar flood.
"My blood is all meridian; were it not,
I had not left my clime, nor should I be,
In spite of tortures, ne'er to be forgot,
A slave again of love,--at least of thee.
"'Tis vain to struggle--let me perish young--
Live as I lived, and love as I have loved;
To dust if I return, from dust I sprung,
And then, at least, my heart can ne'er be moved."
On arriving at Bologna and receiving no further intelligence from the
Contessa, he began to be of opinion, as we shall perceive in the annexed
interesting letters, that he should act most prudently, for all parties,
by returning to Venice.
[Footnote 33: The Po.]
* * * * *