In view of the secrecy which Byron consistently observed, respecting his later intimacy with Mary Chaworth, the publication of these verses would have been highly indiscreet. They were written in June, 1819, after Mary had for some time been reconciled to her husband. She was then living with him at Colwick Hall, near Nottingham. Ostensibly these stanzas form an apostrophe to the River Po, and the 'lady of the land' was, of course, the Guiccioli. Medwin, to whom Byron gave the poem, believed that the river apostrophized by the poet was the River Po, whose 'deep and ample stream' was 'the mirror of his heart.' But it seems perfectly clear that, if this poem referred only to the Countess Guiccioli, there could have been no objection to its publication in England. The reading public in those days knew nothing of Byron's liaisons abroad, and his mystic allusion to foreign rivers and foreign ladies would have left the British public cold. A scrutiny of these perplexing stanzas suggests that they were adapted, from a fragment written in early life, to meet the conditions of 1819. Evidently Mary Chaworth was once more 'the ocean to the river of his thoughts,' and the stream indicated in the opening stanza was not the Po, but the River Trent, which flows close to the ancient walls of Colwick, where 'the lady of his love' was then residing. To assist the reader, we insert the poem, having merely transposed three stanzas to make its purport clearer I. '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_: II. '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! III. '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 the climates of our birth. IV. '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! V. '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. VI. 'Time may have somewhat tamed them--not for ever; Thou overflowest thy banks, and not for aye Thy bosom overboils, congenial river! Thy floods subside, and mine have sunk away: VII. '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. VIII.