She weaned me with a chant upon her lips
In this, her land of choice. A part of me
Can hear it still -- her varied litany
Of names and deeds, of culture, buildings, ships.
Did not Leonardo's work eclipse
The work of any non-Italian? Si!
Did not Dante's lines make history
In hell? Did not Caruso bring great strips
Of heaven down? Such were her roundelays,
Her litanies, her heroes deified.
She fed me tall on measured feet of praise,
And so I grew -- and grew a steely hide
Reinforced with all her yesterdays.
No slur can penetrate my armored pride.

No slur can penetrate my armored pride
Built upon reflections of the past.
Labels, epithets, well aimed and cast,
Leave its structured steel unmodified.
Say of Italy, her streets are dyed
In shades of noise, her southern hills morassed
In grief, but add, the Appian Way will last,
The Sistine Chapel shuts a heaven inside.
Dagoes, wops, and all such noisy ilk
Talk at fifty decibels or so,
But speak a language syllabled in silk.
Every other plain Giovanni Doe
Pours his children wine instead of milk,
And all get drunk on Verdi. Eccolo!

. . . and all! Get drunk on Verdi. Eccolo!
Culture strums a tune on each guitar,
Bows to kings, sits at every bar,
And paddles up the Arno, down the Po.
Allegro, fort' or pian-pianissimo,
It rides the morning sun and evening star,
Boards donkey-cart and swaying cable-car,
And hails by name each Tony, Gina, Joe.
Aida sings her haunting notes of doom
While lolling in the lap of Medici
Or pushing on the handle of a broom.
The well-creased gent, the man of baggy knee --
Each faints with sweet Aida in her tomb.
Music knows no rank in Italy.

Music knows no rank in Italy.
Galli-Curci's voice was silk shantung
Rippling like a banner-cloth among
The well-born rich, the common peasantry.
"But, Mama, what's that got to do with me?
"Caruso, Pinza -- what's one gifted lung
"Against the many thousands of them strung
"Like garlic-bulbs from Rome to Brindisi!"
So this is what: It takes a certain flair
To recognize a flair you haven't got.
Who can must do; and all who cannot, care.
No star could find itself a lofty spot
Without a heeding crowd to lift it there.
Even Michelangelo could not!

Even Michelangelo could not
Have sipped his Dago-red without a sigh.
Dago! Wop! Dumb Eyetalian! Eye?
Michelangelo? Compatriot!
They'll have to crush me in the melting-pot,
Clamp the lid, adjust the flame to high,
Before my stubborn blood will simmer dry
Within this flesh from Latin flesh begot.
I'm heir to easy anger, maudlin tears.
My breed erupts emotion like a flow
Of molten lava layering the years.
My forebears wept when Michelangelo
Unveiled his David. Tears and wild cheers
Laid to view the Latin's quick de trop.

Laid to view, the Latin's quick de trop
Is seen to be an overstated prayer
Mixed with silent lauding on the air,
A scherzo and an oratorio.
Abundancies, enthusiasms go
Wherever the Italian goes, and where
He lives, unfragile loyalty is there.
(I hope, I think, I know it must be so!)
Oh, you, of charcoal eyes and olive skin,
Who scale the Alps and pluck the citrus tree,
I'll seek you out some day, for we are kin.
Beyond these reaches of geography,
I'll go to where my blood has always been
To claim myself, to be what I must be.

To claim myself -- to be what I must be
And more -- were goals implied by song. She sang
Proud lyrics of a land where giants sprang
To size, ungrudgingly. From A to Z
She named them and re-named them, one, two, three.
Galileo, how your praises rang!
Marconi with your signals, rat-tat, ping-pang!
Columbus, Marco Polo, do, re, me!
She swaddled me in yards of willful gauze
Impervious to barbs, immune to rips
Of tongue, to haughty eyes, to sniping claws.
She gave me giants lifting me in grips
Of steel. She weaned me -- weaned me on applause;
She weaned me with a chant upon her lips.