Music, and Other Poems

PATRIA

     I would not even ask my heart to say
         If I could love some other land as well
         As thee, my country, had I felt the spell
     Of Italy at birth, or learned to obey
     The charm of France, or England's mighty sway.
       I would not be so much an infidel
       As once to dream, or fashion words to tell,
     What land could hold my love from thee away.

     For like a law of nature in my blood
       I feel thy sweet and secret sovereignty,
         And woven through my soul thy vital sign.
     My life is but a wave, and thou the flood;
       I am a leaf and thou the mother-tree;
         Nor should I be at all, were I not thine.

     June, 1904.