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 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, unharmed by summer's heat.

She will look on thee,---I have looked 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 fanned
 By the black wind that chills the polar flood.

My blood is all meridian; were it not
 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 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.