_Therefore farewell, ye hills, and ye, ye envineyarded ruins!_ _Therefore farewell, ye walls, palaces, pillars, and domes!_ _Therefore farewell, far seen, ye peaks of the mythic Albano,_ _Seen from Montorio’s height, Tibur and Æsula’s hills!_ _Ah, could we once, ere we go, could we stand, while, to ocean descending,_ _Sinks o’er the yellow dark plain slowly the yellow broad sun,_ _Stand, from the forest emerging at sunset, at once in the champaign,_ _Open, but studded with trees, chestnuts umbrageous and old,_ _E’en in those fair open fields that incurve to thy beautiful hollow,_ _Nemi, imbedded in wood, Nemi, inurned in the hill!—_ _Therefore farewell, ye plains, and ye hills, and the City Eternal!_ _Therefore farewell! We depart, but to behold you again!_ CANTO 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 labour, 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 Splügen,— 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_.