Viva Italia!
Italia, in thy bleeding heart
I thought e'en hope was dead;
That from thy scarred and prostrate form
The spark of life had fled.
I thought, as memory's sunset glow
Its radiance o'er thee cast,
That all thy glory and thy fame
Were buried in the past.
Twice Mistress of the world, I thought
Thy star had set in gloom;
That all thy shrines and monuments
Were but thy spirit's tomb---
The mausoleum of the world,
Where Art her spoils might keep;
Where pilgrims from all shrines might come,
To wonder and to weep.
But from thy deathlike slumber now,
In joy I see thee wake
And over thy long shrouded sky
Behold the morning break.
Along the Alps and Apennines
Runs an electric thrill;
A golden splendor lights once more
Each storied vale and hill.
And hopes, bright as thy sunny skies,
Are o'er thy future cast;
The future that upon thee beams,
As glorious as thy past.
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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