s 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,--