Again, true pilgrim of your vaulted past,
I greet you, as my own ancestral home,
With evening ‘Ave Roma’ at the last,
You, wanderers’ retreat, eternal Rome.

The Troy of your forebears we give to fire;
The chariots’ axles crack from furious churning
In this hippodrome of the world entire:
Regina Viarum, see how we are burning.

And you went down in flames and rose from embers;
The mindful blueness could not blind the eye
Of space in your unfathomable sky.
Your cypress, standing sentinel, remembers

In the caresses of a dream of gold
How strong was Troy in ashes lying cold.