SONNET. TO ITALY.
Reading edition
All-radiant region! would that thou wert free! Free 'mid thine Alpine realm of cloud and pine, Free 'mid the rich vales of thine Apennine, Free to the Adrian and the Tyrrhene Sea! God with a two-fold freedom franchise thee! Freedom from alien bonds, so often thine, Freedom from Gentile hopes—death-fires that shine O'er the foul grave of pagan liberty, With pagan empire side by side interred; Then round the fixed throne of their Roman sire Thy sister states should hang, a pleiad choir, With saintly beam unblunted and unblurred, A splendor to the Christian splendor clinging, A lyre star-strung, ever the "new song" singing! Aubrey De Vere.