George Gordon Noel, Byron - Italia! Oh Italia

Italia! Oh Italia! Thou who hast

The fatal gift of beauty, which became

A funeral dower of present woes and past,

On thy sweet brow is sorrow ploughed by shame

And annals graved in characters of flame.

Oh God! That thou wert in thy nakedness

Less lovely or more powerful, and couldst claim

Thy right, and awe the robbers back, who press

To shed thy blood, and drink the tears of thy distress.

Then might’st thou more appal, or less desired,

Be homely and be peaceful, undeplored

For thy destructive charms; then still untired,

Would not be seen the armed torrents poured

Down the deep Alps; nor would the hostile horde

Of many-nationed spoilers from the Po

Quaff blood and water; nor the stranger’s sword

Be thy sad weapon of defence, and so,

Victor or vanquished, thou the slave of friend or foe.

Analisi della poesia di Byron

This poem by Lord Byron is made up of two stanzas, each stanza consists of 9 lines that have regular length and begin with a capital letter. There is a regular punctuation. The rhyme scheme is: ABABBCBCC DDDDDEDEE.
In the first part there are a lot of archaisms. In this poem there are many run-on-lines and a lot of archaisms. There is a personification of Italia in lines 1-10. The poem starts with an exclamation and after there are two oxymoron. The adjective “fatal” (line 2) is connected to adjective “funeral”(line 3).

Tema centrale della poesia

The poem starts with two exclamations “Italia! Oh Italia!, the poet addresses Italy remembering her past beauty, cause of the invasion of many people, in fact the poet uses the oxymoron to indicate this contrasted beauty : “fatal gift” and “destructive charms”. This is a poem about Italy, because Byron left England for political reasons and go to Italy.