Tuesday, 14th.
Salute your country thus, on days of festival: "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 a few years; thou who didst
disseminate 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
cities, and thirty millions of sons; I, a child, who do not
understand thee as yet, and who do not know thee in thy entirety, I
venerate and love thee with all my soul, and I am proud of having
been born of thee, and of calling myself thy son. I love thy
splendid seas and thy sublime mountains; I love thy solemn
monuments and thy immortal memories; I love thy glory and thy
beauty; I love and venerate the whole of thee as that beloved
portion of thee where I, for the first time, beheld the light and
heard thy name. I love the whole of thee, 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 you with the uniform reverence of a son, gentle Florence and
terrible Palermo, immense and beautiful Naples, marvellous and
eternal Rome. I love thee, my sacred country! And I swear that I
will love all thy sons like brothers; that I will always honor in
my heart thy 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 thee, to assist with my
small powers in causing misery, ignorance, injustice, crime, to
disappear one day from thy face, so that thou mayest live and
expand tranquilly in the majesty of thy right and of thy strength.
I swear that I will serve thee, 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
for thee and my life, I will give my blood, and I will die, crying
thy holy name to heaven, and wafting my last kiss to thy blessed
banner."