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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?
There is a city, upbuilt on the quays of the turbulent
Arno,
Under Fiesole's heights,--thither are we to return?
There is a city that fringes the curve of the inflowing
waters,
Under the perilous hill fringes the beautiful bay,--
Parthenope, do they call thee?--the Siren, Neapolis,
seated
Under Vesevus's hill,--are we receding to thee?--
Sicily, Greece, will invite, and the Orient;--or are we
turn to
England, which may after all be for its children the
best?
I. Mary Trevellyn, at Lucerne, to Miss Roper, at
Florence.
So you are really free, and living in quiet at Florence;
That is delightful news; you travelled slowly and
safely;
Mr. Claude got you out; took rooms at Florence before
you;
Wrote from Milan to say so; had left directly for Milan,
Hoping to find us soon;--if he could, he would, you are
certain.--
Dear Miss Roper, your letter has made me exceedingly
happy.
You are quite sure, you say, he asked you about our
intentions;
You had not heard as yet of Lucerne, but told him of
Como.--
Well, perhaps he will come; however, I will not expect
it.
Though you say you are sure,--if he can, he will, you
are certain.
O my dear, many thanks from your ever affectionate Mary.
II. Claude to Eustace.
Florence.
Action will furnish belief,--but will that belief be the
true one?
This is the point, you know. However, it doesn't much
matter.
What one wants, I suppose, is to predetermine the
action,
So as to make it entail, not a chance belief, but the
true one.
Out of the question, you say; if a thing isn't wrong we
may do it.
Ah! but this wrong, you see--but I do not know that it
matters.
Eustace, the Ropers are gone, and no one can tell me
about them.
Pisa.
Pisa, they say they think, and so I follow to Pisa,
Hither and thither inquiring. I weary of making
inquiries.
I am ashamed, I declare, of asking people about it.--
Who are your friends? You said you had friends who would
certainly know them.
Florence.
But it is idle, moping, and thinking, and trying to fix
her
Image once more and more in, to write the whole perfect
inscription
Over and over again upon every page of remembrance.
I have settled to stay at Florence to wait for your
answer.
Who are your friends? Write quickly and tell me. I wait
for your answer.
III. Mary Trevellyn to Miss Roper.--at Lucca Baths.
You are at Lucca baths, you tell me, to stay for the
summer;
Florence was quite too hot; you can't move further at
present.
Will you not come, do you think, before the summer is
over?
Mr. C. got you out with very considerable trouble;
And he was useful and kind, and seemed so happy to serve
you.
Didn't stay with you long, but talked very openly to
you;
Made you almost his confessor, without appearing to know
it,--
What about?--and you say you didn't need his
confessions.
O my dear Miss Roper, I dare not trust what you tell me!
Will he come, do you think? I am really so sorry for
him.
They didn't give him my letter at Milan, I feel pretty
certain.
You had told him Bellaggio. We didn't go to Bellaggio;
So he would miss our track, and perhaps never come to
Lugano,
Where we were written in full, To Lucerne across the St.
Gothard.
But he could write to you;--you would tell him where you
were going.
IV. Claude to Eustace.
Let me, then, bear to forget her. I will not cling to
her falsely:
Nothing factitious or forced shall impair the old happy
relation.
I will let myself go, forget, not try to remember;
I will walk on my way, accept the chances that meet me,
Freely encounter the world, imbibe these alien airs, and
Never ask if new feelings and thoughts are of her or of
others.
Is she not changing herself?--the old image would only
delude me.
I will be bold, too, and change,--if it must be. Yet if
in all things,
Yet if I do but aspire evermore to the Absolute only,
I shall be doing, I think, somehow, what she will be
doing;--
I shall be thine, O my child, some way, though I know
not in what way,
Let me submit to forget her; I must; I already forget
her.
V. Claude to Eustace.
Utterly vain is, alas! this attempt at the
Absolute,--wholly!
I, who believed not in her, because I would fain believe
nothing,
Have to believe as I may, with a wilful, unmeaning
acceptance.
I, who refused to enfasten the roots of my floating
existence
In the rich earth, cling now to the hard, naked rock
that is left me,--
Ah! she was worthy, Eustace,--and that, indeed, is my
comfort,--
Worthy a nobler heart than a fool such as I could have
given her.
Yes, it relieves me to write, though I do not send, and
the chance that
Takes may destroy my fragments. But as men pray, without
asking
Whether One really exist to hear or do anything for
them,--
Simply impelled by the need of the moment to turn to a
Being
In a conception of whom there is freedom from all
limitation,--
So in your image I turn to an ens rationis of
friendship,
Even so write in your name I know not to whom nor in
what wise.
There was a time, methought it was but lately departed,
When, if a thing was denied me, I felt I was bound to
attempt it;
Choice alone should take, and choice alone should
surrender.
There was a time, indeed, when I had not retired thus
early,
Languidly thus, from pursuit of a purpose I once had
adopted,
But it is all over, all that! I have slunk from the
perilous field in
Whose wild struggle of forces the prizes of life are
contested.
It is over, all that! I am a coward, and know it.
Courage in me could be only factitious, unnatural,
useless.
Comfort has come to me here in the dreary streets of the
city,
Comfort--how do you think?--with a barrel-organ to bring
it.
Moping along the streets, and cursing my day as I
wandered,
All of a sudden my ear met the sound of an English
psalm-tune,
Comfort me it did, till indeed I was very near crying.
Ah, there is some great truth, partial, very likely, but
needful,
Lodged, I am strangely sure, in the tones of the English
psalm-tune.
Comfort it was at least; and I must take without
question
Comfort, however it come, in the dreary streets of the
city.
I shall behold thee again (is it so?) at a new
visitation,
O ill genius thou! I shall at my life's dissolution
(When the pulses are weak, and the feeble light of the
reason
Flickers, an unfed flame retiring slow from the socket),
Low on a sick-bed laid, hear one, as it were, at the
doorway,
And, looking up, see thee standing by, looking emptily
at me;
I shall entreat thee then, though now I dare to refuse
thee,--
Pale and pitiful now, but terrible then to the dying.--
Well, I will see thee again, and while I can, will repel
thee.
VI. Claude to Eustace.
Rome is fallen, I hear, the gallant Medici taken,
Noble Manara slain, and Garibaldi has lost il Moro;--
Rome is fallen; and fallen, or falling, heroical Venice.
I, meanwhile, for the loss of a single small chit of a
girl, sit
Moping and mourning here,--for her, and myself much
smaller.
Whither depart the souls of the brave that die in the
battle,
Die in the lost, lost fight, for the cause that perishes
with them?
Are they upborne from the field on the slumberous
pinions of angels
Unto a far-off home, where the weary rest from their
labour,
And the deep wounds are healed, and the bitter and
burning moisture
Wiped from the generous eyes? or do they linger,
unhappy,
Pining, and haunting the grave of their by-gone hope and
endeavour?
All declamation, alas! though I talk, I care not for
Rome nor
Italy; feebly and faintly, and but with the lips, can
lament the
Wreck of the Lombard youth, and the victory of the
oppressor.
Whither depart the brave?--God knows; I certainly do
not.
VII. Mary Trevellyn to Miss Roper.
He has not come as yet; and now I must not expect it.
You have written, you say, to friends at Florence, to
see him,
If he perhaps should return;--but that is surely
unlikely.
Has he not written to you?--he did not know your
direction.
Oh, how strange never once to have told him where you
were going!
Yet if he only wrote to Florence, that would have
reached you.
If what you say he said was true, why has he not done
so?
Is he gone back to Rome, do you think, to his Vatican
marbles?--
O my dear Miss Roper, forgive me! do not be angry!--
You have written to Florence;--your friends would
certainly find him.
Might you not write to him ?--but yet it is so little
likely!
I shall expect nothing more.--Ever yours, your
affectionate Mary.
VIII. Claude to Eustace.
I cannot stay at Florence, not even to wait for a
letter.
Galleries only oppress me. Remembrance of hope I had
cherished
(Almost more than as hope, when I passed through
Florence the first time)
Lies like a sword in my soul. I am more a coward than
ever,
Chicken-hearted, past thought. The caffès and waiters
distress me.
All is unkind, and, alas! I am ready for anyone's
kindness.
Oh, I knew it of old, and knew it, I thought, to
perfection,
If there is any one thing in the world to preclude all
kindness
It is the need of it,--it is this sad, self-defeating
dependence.
Why is this, Eustace? Myself, were I stronger, I think I
could tell you.
But it is odd when it comes. So plumb I the deeps of
depression,
Daily in deeper, and find no support, no will, no
purpose.
All my old strengths are gone. And yet I shall have to
do something.
Ah, the key of our life, that passes all wards, opens
all locks,
Is not I will, but I must. I must,--I must,--and I do
it.
After all, do I know that I really cared so about her?
Do whatever I will, I cannot call up her image;
For when I close my eyes, I see, very likely, St.
Peter's,
Or the Pantheon facade, or Michel Angelo's figures,
Or, at a wish, when I please, the Alban hills and the
Forum,--
But that face, those eyes,--ah, no, never anything like
them;
Only, try as I will, a sort of featureless outline,
And a pale blank orb, which no recollection will add to.
After all, perhaps there was something factitious about
it;
I have had pain, it is true: I have wept; and so have
the actors.
At the last moment I have your letter, for which I was
waiting;
I have taken my place, and see no good in inquiries.
Do nothing more, good Eustace, I pray you. It only will
vex me.
Take no measures. Indeed, should we meet, I could not be
certain;
All might be changed, you know. Or perhaps there was
nothing to be changed.
It is a curious history, this; and yet I foresaw it;
I could have told it before. The Fates, it is clear, are
against us;
For it is certain enough I met with the people you
mention;
They were at Florence the day I returned there, and
spoke to me even;
Stayed a week, saw me often; departed, and whither I
know not.
Great is Fate, and is best. I believe in Providence
partly.
What is ordained is right, and all that happens is
ordered.
Ah, no, that isn't it. But yet I retain my conclusion.
I will go where I am led, and will not dictate to the
chances.
Do nothing more, I beg. If you love me, forbear
interfering.
IX. Claude to Eustace.
Shall we come out of it all, some day, as one does from
a tunnel?
Will it be all at once, without our doing or asking,
We shall behold clear day, the trees and meadows about
us,
And the faces of friends, and the eyes we loved looking
at us?
Who knows? Who can say? It will not do to suppose it.
X. Claude to Eustace,-from Rome.
Rome will not suit me, Eustace; the priests and soldiers
possess it;
Priests and soldiers:--and, ah! which is the worst, the
priest or the soldier?
Politics, farewell, however! For what could I do? with
inquiring,
Talking, collating the journals, go fever my brain about
things o'er
Which I can have no control. No, happen whatever may
happen,
Time, I suppose, will subsist; the earth will revolve on
its axis;
People will travel; the stranger will wander as now in
the city;
Rome will be here, and the Pope the custode of Vatican
marbles.
I have no heart, however, for any marble or fresco;
I have essayed it in vain; 'tis in vain as yet to essay
it:
But I may haply resume some day my studies in this kind;
Not as the Scripture says, is, I think, the fact. Ere
our death-day,
Faith, I think, does pass, and Love; but Knowledge
abideth.
Let us seek Knowledge;--the rest may come and go as it
happens.
Knowledge is hard to seek, and harder yet to adhere to.
Knowledge is painful often; and yet when we know we are
happy.
Seek it, and leave mere Faith and Love to come with the
chances.
As for Hope,--to-morrow I hope to be starting for
Naples.
Rome will not do, I see, for many very good reasons.
Eastward, then, I suppose, with the coming of winter, to
Egypt.
XI. Mary Trevellyn to Miss Roper.
You have heard nothing; of course I know you can have
heard nothing.
Ah, well, more than once I have broken my purpose, and
sometimes,
Only too often, have looked for the little lake steamer
to bring him.
But it is only fancy,--I do not really expect it.
Oh, and you see I know so exactly how he would take it:
Finding the chances prevail against meeting again, he
would banish
Forthwith every thought of the poor little possible
hope, which
I myself could not help, perhaps, thinking only too much
of;
He would resign himself, and go. I see it exactly.
So I also submit, although in a different manner.
Can you not really come? We go very shortly to England.
So go forth to the world, to the good report and the
evil!
Go, little book! thy tale, is it not evil and good?
Go, and if strangers revile, pass quietly by without
answer.
Go, and if curious friends ask of thy rearing and age,
Say, 'I am flitting about many years from brain unto
brain of
Feeble and restless youths born to inglorious days:
But,' so finish the word, 'I was writ in a Roman
chamber,
When from Janiculan heights thundered the cannon of
France.'
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