Turned to stone by the spell of water-sound
Of streams that run over the edge in swirls,
The ship-like fount Barcaccia lies half-drowned;
To it Campania sends flower-girls.

The great staircase goes stepping over mansions
And patterning the expansive way in twain,
It raises to the sky twin-pointed stanchions
And obelisk above the Piazza of Spain.

I love the sunburnt orange of the walls,
The crowds of people in the age-old square,
The rustling palms when parching noontide falls,

In dark of night an aria sighing there,
And, to the velvet zithers’ strumming din,
The chirping of a roving mandolin.