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George Gordon Byron - Stanzas To The Po
Work rating: Medium

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 on 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,
   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 fann`d
   By the black wind that chills the polar flood.
 
My blood is all meridian; were it not, as
   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
   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.
 
April 1819.
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