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Eastward, or
Northward, or West? I wander and ask as I wander;
Weary, yet eager and sure, Where shall I come to my
love?
Whitherward hasten to seek her? Ye daughters of Italy,
tell me,
Graceful and tender and dark, is she consorting with
you?
Thou that out-climbest the torrent, that tendest thy
goats to the summit,
Call to me, child of the Alp, has she been seen on the
heights?
Italy, farewell I bid thee! for whither she leads me, I
follow.
Farewell the vineyard! for I, where I but guess her,
must go;
Weariness welcome, and labour, wherever it be, if at
last it
Bring me in mountain or plain into the sight of my love.
I. Claude to Eustace,--from Florence.
Gone from Florence; indeed! and that is truly
provoking;--
Gone to Milan, it seems; then I go also to Milan.
Five days now departed; but they can travel but
slowly;--
I quicker far; and I know, as it happens, the home they
will go to.--
Why, what else should I do? Stay here and look at the
pictures,
Statues and churches? Alack, I am sick of the statues
and pictures!--
No, to Bologna, Parma, Piacenza, Lodi, and Milan,
Off go we to-night,--and the Venus go to the Devil!
II. Claude to Eustace,--from Bellaggio.
Gone to Como, they said; and I have posted to Como.
There was a letter left; but the cameriere had lost it.
Could it have been for me? They came, however, to Como,
And from Como went by the boat,--perhaps to the Splügen,--
Or to the Stelvio, say, and the Tyrol; also it might be
By Porlezza across to Lugano, and so to the Simplon
Possibly, or the St. Gothard,--or possibly, too, to
Baveno,
Orta, Turin, and elsewhere. Indeed, I am greatly
bewildered.
III. Claude to Eustace,--from Bellaggio.
I have been up the Splügen, and on the Stelvio also:
Neither of these can I find they have followed; in no
one inn, and
This would be odd, have they written their names. I have
been to Porlezza;
There they have not been seen, and therefore not at
Lugano.
What shall I do? Go on through the Tyrol, Switzerland,
Deutschland,
Seeking, an inverse Saul, a kingdom to find only asses?
There is a tide, at least, in the love affairs of
mortals,
Which, when taken at flood, leads on to the happiest
fortune,--
Leads to the marriage-morn and the orange-flowers and
the altar,
And the long lawful line of crowned joys to crowned joys
succeeding.--
Ah, it has ebbed with me! Ye gods, and when it was
flowing,
Pitiful fool that I was, to stand fiddle-faddling in
that way!
IV. Claude to Eustace,--from Bellaggio.
I have returned and found their names in the book at
Como.
Certain it is I was right, and yet I am also in error.
Added in feminine hand, I read, By the boat to Bellaggio.--
So to Bellaggio again, with the words of he writing to
aid me.
Yet at Bellaggio I find no trace, no sort of
remembrance.
So I am here, and wait, and know every hour will remove
them.
V. Claude to Eustace,--from Bellaggio.
I have but one chance left,--and that is going to
Florence.
But it is cruel to turn. The mountains seem to demand
me,--
Peak and valley from far to beckon and motion me onward.
Somewhere amid their folds she passes whom fain I would
follow;
Somewhere amid those heights she haply calls me to seek
her.
Ah, could I hear her call! could I catch the glimpse of
her raiment!
Turn, however, I must, though it seem I turn to desert
her;
For the sense of the thing is simply to hurry to
Florence,
Where the certainty yet may be learnt, I suppose, from
the Ropers.
VI. Mary Trevellyn, from Lucerne, to Miss Roper, at
Florence.
Dear Miss Roper,--By this you are safely away, we are
hoping,
Many a league from Rome; ere long we trust we shall see
you.
How have you travelled? I wonder;--was Mr. Claude your
companion?
As for ourselves, we went from Como straight to Lugano;
So by the Mount St. Gothard; we meant to go by Porlezza,
Taking the steamer, and stopping, as you had advised, at
Bellaggio,
Two or three days or more; but this was suddenly
altered,
After we left the hotel, on the very way to the steamer.
So we have seen, I fear, not one of the lakes in
perfection.
Well, he is not come, and now, I suppose, he will not
come.
What will you think, meantime? and yet I must really
confess it;--
What will you say? I wrote him a note. We left in a
hurry,
Went from Milan to Como, three days before we expected.
But I thought, if he came all the way to Milan, he
really
Ought not to be disappointed: and so I wrote three lines
to
Say I had heard he was coming, desirous of joining our
party;--
If so, then I said, we had started for Como, and meant
to
Cross the St. Gothard, and stay, we believed, at
Lucerne, for the summer.
Was it wrong? and why, if it was, has it failed to bring
him?
Did he not think it worth while to come to Milan? He
knew (you
Told him) the house we should go to. Or may it, perhaps,
have miscarried?
Any way, now, I repent, and am heartily vexed that I
wrote it.
There is a home on the shore of the Alpine sea, that
upswelling
High up the mountain-sides spreads in the hollow
between;
Wilderness, mountain, and snow from the land of the
olive conceal it;
Under Pilatus's hill low by the river it lies;
Italy, utter the word, and the olive and vine will
allure not,--
Wilderness, forest, and snow will not the passage
impede;
Italy, unto thy cities receding, the clue to recover,
Hither, recovered the clue, shall not the traveller
haste?
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