When the sky of June was bluest, melting as the eye of love,
And the breezes from Campagnia bore the city’s hum above;
Poring o’er the rich and classic authors of the Age of Gold,
Virgil, Horace, Terence, Plautus, Livy and historians old,
I imagined Rome restored as in the glorious days of yore,
Peopled by the great and mighty, as it shall be nevermore.
I beheld the Past before me, and the fallen circus rose,
And the leaning columns righted, and the ruins seemed to close;
Flags were streaming on the lofty walls, and standards of renown,
Plucked from out some hostile army, or some sacked and burning town;