AMOURS DE VOYAGE.

[Concluded.]

  IV.

  Eastward, or Northward, or West?  I wander, and ask as I wander,
      Weary, yet eager and sure, where shall I come to my love? 
  Whitherward hasten to seek her?  Ye daughters of Italy, tell me,
      Graceful and tender and dark, is she consorting with you? 
  Thou that out-climbest the torrent, that tendest thy goats to the summit,
      Call to me, child of the Alp, has she been seen on the heights? 
  Italy, farewell I bid thee! for, whither she leads me, I follow. 
      Farewell the vineyard! for I, where I but guess her, must go. 
  Weariness welcome, and labor, wherever it be, if at last it
      Bring me in mountain or plain into the sight of my love.

  I.—­Claude to Eustace,—­from Florence.

  Gone from Florence; indeed; and that is truly provoking;—­
  Gone to Milan, it seems; then I go also to Milan. 
  Five days now departed; but they can travel but slowly;—­
  I quicker far; and I know, as it happens, the house they will go to.—­
  Why, what else should I do?  Stay here and look at the pictures,
  Statues, and churches?  Alack, I am sick of the statues and pictures!—­
  No, to Bologna, Parma, Piacenza, Lodi, and Milan,
  Off go we to-night,—­and the Venus go to the Devil!

  II.—­Claude to Eustace,—­from Bellaggio.

  Gone to Como, they said; and I have posted to Como. 
  There was a letter left, but the cameriere had lost it. 
  Could it have been for me?  They came, however, to Como,
  And from Como went by the boat,—­perhaps to the Spluegen,—­
  Or to the Stelvio, say, and the Tyrol; also it might be
  By Porlezza across to Lugano, and so to the Simplon
  Possibly, or the St. Gothard, or possibly, too, to Baveno,
  Orta, Turin, and elsewhere.  Indeed, I am greatly bewildered.

  III.—­Claude to Eustace,—­from Bellaggio.

  I have been up the Spluegen, and on the Stelvio also: 
  Neither of these can I find they have followed; in no one inn, and
  This would be odd, have they written their names.  I have been to
       Porlezza. 
  There they have not been seen, and therefore not at Lugano. 
  What shall I do?  Go on through the Tyrol, Switzerland, Deutschland,
  Seeking, an inverse Saul, a kingdom, to find only asses? 
    There is a tide, at least in the love affairs of mortals,
  Which, when taken at flood, leads on to the happiest fortune,—­
  Leads to the marriage-morn and the orange-flowers and the altar,
  And the long lawful line of crowned joys to crowned joys succeeding.—­
  Ah, it has ebbed with me!  Ye gods, and when it was flowing,
  Pitiful fool that I was, to stand fiddle-faddling in that way!

  IV.—­CLAUDE TO EUSTACE,—­from Bellaggio.