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| LION-HEARTS of young Italy! | |
| Field where none died in vain! | |
| Beardless boys and famine-gaunt | |
| Corpses along the plain,— | |
| Did not enough of ye die | 5 |
| On the field where none died in vain, | |
| Lion-hearts of young Italy! | |
| |
| Fields where death was victory, | |
| Blood that gushed not in vain | |
| When the deadly rifle of France | 10 |
| Crashed with its iron rain; | |
| ’Neath the pine-dotted slopes of Tivoli | |
| The triumph is with the slain, | |
| Lion-hearts of young Italy! | |
| |
| Noble error, if error, | 15 |
| To make their fatherland one!— | |
| Through her five-and-twenty centuries | |
| Rome counts no worthier son | |
| Than he who led them to die | |
| Where death and triumph were one,— | 20 |
| Lion-hearts of young Italy! | |
| |
| For the blood of Mentana | |
| To the blood of Thermopylæ calls, | |
| And the blood of Marathon answers, | |
| Not in vain, not in vain he falls | 25 |
| Who stakes his life on the die | |
| When the voice of freedom calls, | |
| Lion-hearts of young Italy! | |
| |
| Passionate instinct for truth, | |
| Children and heroes in one, | 30 |
| Reason higher than reason, | |
| Light from beyond the sun;— | |
| Did not enough of ye die | |
| To knit your country in one, | |
| Lion-hearts of young Italy? | 35 |
| |
| Pity not them as they lie | |
| Crowned with the fortunate dead,— | |
| Pity not them, but the foe, | |
| For the precious drops that they shed | |
| Sow but the seed of victory! | 40 |
| Pity the foe, not the dead, | |
| Lion-hearts of young Italy! | |
| |
| Yours to be gallant and true, | |
| Yours for your country to die, | |
| Yours to be men of Mentana, | 45 |
| Highly esteemed ’mong the high: | |
| Theirs to look on at your victory! | |
| For did not enough of ye die, | |
| Lion-hearts of young Italy? | |
| |
| Brief the day of November, | 50 |
| Long to the remnant that fought; | |
| Boys too young for the battle | |
| Naked and hunger-distraught; | |
| No, not too young to die, | |
| Falling where each one fought, | 55 |
| Lion-hearts of young Italy! | |
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