To Italy

O thou my country! I behold the walls,
The pillars and the arches of our sires,
Their towers and statues old:
But I do not behold
Their glory, or their weapons, or their bays,
Wherewith they were surcharged. Disarmed and fallen,
Thou dost thy brow and naked bosom show.
Oh! from thy deep wounds flow
What streams of blood! What pallor meets our gaze!
Where is thy beauty now? Of Heaven I ask,
And of the earth: "Oh say,
Who hath reduced her to this piteous plight?"
And what is worse, her arms strong fetters bind,
And without veil her hair floats to the wind,
And she, forlorn and sad, sits on the ground,
To anguish giving way.
Weep, O my Italy, for thou hast cause:
Born to surpass mankind
In every phase of Fortune, generous and unkind.
Even though thine eyes were torrents, nevermore
Could tears enough be shed
Thine injuries to weep and bitter shame,
O wretched slave, a glorious Queen of yore!
Who writes or thinks of thee,
And beareth in his mind thy vanished fame,
And sayeth not: "Why is her greatness dead?
What is the cause? Where is her ancient might?
Where is her valour in the glorious fight?
Who robbed thee of thy sword?
Who hath betrayed? What science, or what wiles.
Or what victorious lord
Despoiled thee of the garments of thy pride?
How didst thou fall, and when,
To this low state from regions glorified?
Doth no one fight for thee? No son of thine
Rise in thy cause? Bring weapons! I alone
Will fight, or perish in the fray divine.
Grant, Heaven, that even like fire
My blood may rise and all Italian souls inspire."
Where are thy sons? I hear a sound of arms,
Of chariots and of voices and of drums:
In countries far away
Thy sons meet war's affray.
Have patience, Italy, for comfort comes.
I see a storm of warriors and of steeds,
'Mid smoke, the sword, by which the foeman bleeds,
Like lightning flashing wide.
Is not some balm unto thy soul supplied?
Wilt thou not gaze upon the doubtful field?
For whom their life-blood yield
The sons of Italy? Ah, woeful sight!
For alien lord, their gore in streams doth flow!
Oh! wretched he who perisheth in fight,
Not for his native soil and loving wife,
Not for his children's life,
But slain by others' foe
For stranger race, and cannot say in death:
"I give thee now the breath,
My fatherland most dear, thou didst on me bestow."
Oh fortunate and blessed and endeared
The olden times, when throngs
Unnumbered sought to perish for their land!
And ye, to whom revering praise belongs,
Passes of Thessaly,
Where Fate and Persia lost power to withstand
The brave, the generous, the immortal few!
Methinks your mountains with mysterious voice,
Your forests, and your rocks, and azure wave
Unto the stranger tell
How on that plain the bodies of the brave
In dauntless legions fell,
Their lives devoting glorious Greece to save.
Ferocious then and wild,
Did Xerxes o'er the Hellespont take flight,
Laden with scorn of every future day;
And on Antela's memorable height,
Where the blest throng, in dying, ne'er found death,
Simonides did stand,
And gazed upon the sky, the ocean, and the land.
With tear-worn eyes, and with deep-sighing heart,
While strong emotion made his step infirm,
He seized the tuneful lyre:
"Oh ever blessed ye
Who gave your bosoms to the hostile spears
For love of her who led you to the sun!
Ye, whom Greece loves, and nations far admire!
To arms and dangers dire
What love did guide those in their early years?
What love the old whose days were nearly done?
Why unto ye so gay
Appeared the final hour, that bright with smites
You hurried on the hard and tearful way?
It seemed as though to dance or banquet proud,
And not to death, your numbers did proceed.
But Hades gazed with greed
Upon your valiant crowd;
Nor were your spouses or your children near
When in the fatal fray
Without a kiss you perished, and without a tear.
"But not without the Persian's punishment
And anguish ne'er to die.
Even as into a field where bulls are pent
A famished lion rushes, and his fangs
And claws make havoc wild,
And give his bellowing victims fatal pangs:
Thus, 'mid the Persian multitudes doth fly
The wrathful valour of the sons of Greece.
Behold the horsemen and their steeds o'erturned!
See how the whirl of flight
Entangles cars in many a fallen tent!
And of the first to run,
The tyrant, pale, and with dishevelled hair!
See how with crimson stains
Of barbarous blood the Grecian brave besmeared,
Giving the Persians infinite despair,
Fall, by their wounds exhausted, one by one,
Covering each other on the gory plains!
O blessed ye! for aye
To live whilst earth preserves a chronicle or lay!
"Sooner destroyed and cast into the deep
From highest heaven the stars shall hissing fall,
Rather than your renown
Forego its glorious crown.
An altar is your tomb; and full of love,
The mothers to their infants shall display
The traces of your blood. Behold, I sink,
Ye blessed, on the earth,
And kiss the rocks and the most cherished soil
That shall be praised and glorious for aye
Throughout creation's girth.
Would I were with you in your graves below!
Would that my gore with yours combined could flow!
But if our different doom forbids that I
For Greece should perish in heroic fray,
And close for her mine eye:
Yet may the fame, endeared
To future ages, of your poet shine;
And if the Gods benign
Consent, as long as yours be glorious and revered."