Heart/Italy
ITALY
Tuesday, 13th.
Salute your country on days of festivals, thus: “Italy, my country, dear and noble land, where my father and my mother were born, and where they will be buried, where I hope to live and die, where my children will grow up and die; beautiful Italy, great and glorious for many centuries, united and free for the past few years; who has scattered so great a light of intellect divine over the world, and for whom so many valiant men have died on the battle-field, and so many heroes on the gallows; august mother of three hundred cites, and thirty millions of sons; I, a child, who do not understand you as yet, and who do not know you in your entirety, venerate and love you with all my soul, and am proud of having been born of you, and of calling myself your son. I love your splendid seas and sublime mountains; I love your solemn monuments and immortal memories; I love your glory and beauty; I love and venerate the whole of you as much as that beloved portion where I, for the first time, beheld the light and heard your name. I love the whole of you, with a single affection and with equal gratitude,—Turin the valiant, Genoa the superb, Bologna the learned, Venice the enchanting, Milan the mighty; I love with the reverence of a son, gentle Florence and terrible Palermo, immense and beautiful Naples, marvellous and eternal Rome. I love you, my sacred country! And I swear that I will love all your sons like brothers; that I will always honor in my heart your great men, living and dead; that I will be an industrious and honest citizen, constantly intent on ennobling myself, in order to render myself worthy of you, to assist with my small powers in causing misery, ignorance, injustice, crime, to disappear one day from your face, so that you may live and grow quietly in the majesty of your right and of your strength. I swear that I will serve you, as it may be granted to me, with my mind, with my arm, with my heart, humbly, ardently; and that, if the day should dawn in which I should be called on to give my blood and my life for you, I will give my blood, and I will die, crying your holy name to heaven, and wafting my last kiss to your blessed banner.”
Your Father.