| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Georgian Verse. 1909. | | | | An Italian Song | | By Samuel Rogers (1763–1855) |
| | | DEAR is my little native vale: | |
| The ringdove builds and murmurs there; | |
| Close by my cot she tells her tale | |
| To every passing villager. | |
| The squirrel leaps from tree to tree, | 5 |
| And shells his nuts at liberty. | |
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| In orange groves and myrtle bowers, | |
| That breathe a gale of fragrance round, | |
| I charm the fairy-footed hours | |
| With my loved lute’s romantic sound; | 10 |
| Or crowns of living laurel weave | |
| For those that win the race at eve. | |
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| The shepherd’s horn at break of day, | |
| The ballet danced in twilight glade, | |
| The canzonet and roundelay | 15 |
| Sung in the silent greenwood shade; | |
| These simple joys, that never fail, | |
| Shall bind me to my native vale! | | | | |
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