"River that rollest by the ancient walls "Where dwells the lady of my love, when she "Walks by the 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; 66 66 Thy bosom overboils, congenial river! Thy floods subside; and mine have sunk away * The Po. "But left long wrecks behind them, and again "Borne on our old unchanged career, we move; "Thou tendest wildly onward 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 66 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 near 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 a lady of the land, "Born far beyond the mountains, but his blood "Is all meridian, as if never fann'd 66 66 By the bleak wind that chills the polar flood. My blood is all meridian; were it not, "I had not left my clime;-I shall not 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 young"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.” Calling on Lord Byron one evening after the opera, we happened to talk of Cavalieri Serventi, and Italian women; and he contended that much was to be said in excuse for them, and in defence of the system. "We will put out of the question," "said he, a Cavalier Serventecism; that 66 "is only another term for prostitution, "where the women get all the money 66 66 they can, and have (as is the case in all such contracts) no love to give in exchange. I speak of another, and of a "different service." 66 66 "Do you know how a girl is brought up here?" continued he. "Almost from infancy she is deprived of the endear ments of home, and shut up in a con"vent till she has attained a marriageable "or marketable age. The father now "looks out for a suitable son-in-law. As "a certain portion of his fortune is fixed "by law for the dower of his children, "his object is to find some needy man "of equal rank, or a very rich one, the "older the better, who will consent to "take his daughter off his hands, under the market price. This, if she happen 66 to be handsome, is not difficult of ac 'complishment. Objections are seldom "made on the part of the young lady to "the age, and personal or other defects “of the intended, who perhaps visits her 66 once in the parlour as a matter of form |