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Sonnet on approaching Italy

by Oscar Wilde, 1881

I REACHED the Alps: the soul within me burned
   Italia, my Italia, at thy name:
   And when from out the mountain’s heart I came
 And saw the land for which my life had yearned,
 I laughed as one who some great prize had earned:
   And musing on the story of thy fame
   I watched the day, till marked with wounds of flame
 The turquoise sky to burnished gold was turned,
 The pine-trees waved as waves a woman’s hair,
   And in the orchards every twining spray
   Was breaking into flakes of blossoming foam:
 But when I knew that far away at Rome
   In evil bonds a second Peter lay,
   I wept to see the land so very fair.


TURIN.

Published in Poems
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