To Italy
O ITALY of chiming bells,Of pilgrim shrines and holy wells,Of incense mist and secret prayers,Profound and sweet as scented airsBlown from a field of lily flowers!
O Italy of pagan vine,That thrills with sap of sun-born wine,Drenching the Christian soul with redWarm liquid of a faith long dead,Wafting it back to sensuous hours.
No mortal woman ever heldSuch sweet inconstancies, or welledWith such hot springs of turbid fire;No being throbbed with such desire,Thy very air is ecstacy!
O pagan goddess, from whose lipsThe gentle Christian worship slips,I fear thee, knowing what thou artYet I adore thee; take my heartI am thy lover, Italy!
Words in this poem
- sensuous a.
- Of or pertaining to the senses, or sensible objects; addressing the senses; suggesting pictures or images of sense.
- adore v. t.
- To worship with profound reverence; to pay divine honors to; to honor as deity or as divine. [OE. aouren, anouren, adoren, OF. aorer, adorer, F. adorer, fr. L. adorare; ad + orare to speak, pray, os, oris, mouth. In OE. confused with honor, the French pr]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To Italy is in the public domain. This text is taken from Songs of Three Counties, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #50591; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Radclyffe Hall, To Italy, in Songs of Three Counties, and Other Poems (1913), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #50591, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hall-three-counties/to-italy.html, id L22698.
Form and metre
To Italy is 20 lines in 4 stanzas of 5 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets, 80% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AABB- bellsA · wellsA · prayersB · airsB · flowers
- 2 AABB- vineA · wineA · redB · deadB · hours
- 3 AABB- heldA · welledA · fireB · desireB · ecstacy
- 4 AABB- lipsA · slipsA · artB · heartB · italy
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| O ITALY of chiming bells, | 8 | ·/˘˘·/˘· |
| Of pilgrim shrines and holy wells, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Of incense mist and secret prayers, | 8 | ·/···/˘· |
| Profound and sweet as scented airs | 8 | ˘/···/˘· |
| Blown from a field of lily flowers! | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| O Italy of pagan vine, | 8 | ·/˘˘·/˘· |
| That thrills with sap of sun-born wine, | 8 | ········ |
| Drenching the Christian soul with red | 8 | /˘·/˘··· |
| Warm liquid of a faith long dead, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Wafting it back to sensuous hours. | 8 | /˘···/˘/ |
| No mortal woman ever held | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| Such sweet inconstancies, or welled | 8 | ··˘/˘˘·· |
| With such hot springs of turbid fire; | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| No being throbbed with such desire, | 9 | ·/˘···˘/˘ |
| Thy very air is ecstacy! | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| O pagan goddess, from whose lips | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| The gentle Christian worship slips, | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| I fear thee, knowing what thou art | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Yet I adore thee; take my heart | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| I am thy lover, Italy! | 8 | ···/˘/˘˘ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.