| C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917. | | | | Italy |
| | | | Italia! O 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 plough’d by shame, |
| And annals graved in characters of flame. |
Byron. | 1 |
| | Italy, my Italy! |
| Queen Mary’s saying serves for me— |
| (When fortune’s malice |
| Lost her Calais)— |
| Open my heart and you will see |
| Graved inside of it, “Italy.” |
Robert Browning. | 2 |
| | Fair Italy! |
| Thou art the garden of the world, the home |
| Of all Art yields, and Nature can decree, |
| Even in thy desert, what is like to thee? |
| Thy very weeds are beautiful, thy waste |
| More rich than other climes’ fertility; |
| Thy wreck a glory, and thy ruin graced |
| With an immaculate charm which cannot be defac’d. |
Byron. | 3 | | |
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