“We are Spaniards, Africans, Phoenicians, Carthaginians,
Romans, Arabs, Pisans, Byzantines, Piedmontese.
We are the golden yellow brooms that droop
on rocky paths, as large lighted lamps.
We are the wild solitude, the immense and profound silence,
the splendor of the sky, the white flower of cistus.
We are the uninterrupted reign of mastic,
of waves that flow on ancient granites,
of wild roses
of the wind, of the immensity of the sea.
We are an ancient land of long silences,
Of large and pure horizons, of gloomy trees,
Of mountains burned by sunshine and revenge.
We are Sardinians.
(Grazia Deledda)