Salve Saturnia Tellus
Salve Saturnia Tellus - context Summary
Admiration Born from Travel
This short lyric celebrates the speaker’s arrival in Italy with vivid, celebratory imagery of Alps, pines and blossoming orchards, then closes in unexpected sorrow. Written with admiration for Italian landscape and culture, it contrasts personal joy at reaching a longed-for land with sympathy for political or religious suffering in Rome, invoked as a "second Peter" held in "evil bonds."
Read Complete AnalysesI 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.
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