Lord Byron – Childe Harold Canto 4 part 3
Childe Harold continues through “Italia! oh Italia, thou who hadst the fatal gift of beauty, which became a funeral dower of present woes and past,…” and he finds “The moral lesson bears, drawn from such pilgrimage”. He pays triibute to many writers but condemns the “Patron or tyrant, as the changing mood of petty power impell’d, of those who wore the wreath which Dante’s brow alone hath worn before”. “He! with a glory round his furrow’d brow…”, while thou! form’d to eat , and be despis’d, and die, even as the beasts that perish, save that thou hadst a more splendid trough and wider sty;…” is how Childe sees others compared to Dante.
