Stanzas To The Po Analysis

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.

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