Stanzas To The Po

River, 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, unharmed by summer's heat.

She will look on thee,---I have looked 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 fanned
   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.