My dear H----, I shall be in Ireland the whole month of July. I am
coming first to Dublin, and shall afterward go to Cork. You really
must not be away when I come, for if you are, I won't come, which
is good Irish, isn't it? I do not feel as you do, at all, about the
sea. Instead of depressing my spirits, it always raises them; it
seems to me as if the vast power of the great element communicated
itself to me. I feel _strong_, as I run by the side of the big
waves, with something of their strength, and the same species of
wild excitement which thunder and lightning produce in me always
affects me by the sea-shore. I never saw the sea but once violently
agitated, and then I was so well pleased with its appearance that I
took a boat and went out into the bustle, singing with all my
might, which was the only vent I could find for my high spirits; it
is true that I returned in much humiliation, very seasick, after a
short "triumph of Galatea" indeed.

You ask me in one of your last why I do not send you verses any
more, as I used to do, and whether I still write any. So here I
send you some which I improvised the other day in your honor, and
which, written hurriedly as they were, will not, I think, stand the
test of any very severe criticism:--

Whene'er I recollect the happy time
When you and I held converse sweet together,
There come a thousand thoughts of sunny weather,
Of early blossoms, and the young year's prime.
Your memory lives for ever in my mind,
With all the fragrant freshness of the spring,
With odorous lime and silver hawthorn twined,
And mossy rest and woodland wandering.
There's not a thought of you but brings along
Some sunny glimpse of river, field, and sky;
Your voice sets words to the sweet blackbird's song,
And many a snatch of wild old melody;
And as I date it still our love arose
'Twixt the last violet and the earliest rose.

I never go anywhere without a book wherein I may scratch my
valuable ideas, and therefore when we meet I will show you my
present receptacle. I take great delight in writing, and write less
incorrectly than I used to do. I have not time now to go on with
this letter, and as I am anxious you should know when to expect us,
I shall not defer