the dying antique beauty of Italy

". . . It is that mellowest hour when the sun

His dying salutation on the towers

And, Saint Petronius, on thy temple sheds, . . .

. . . On the grey building stones and on the dark

Vermilion brick, and seems to waken there

The living soul of vanished centuries; . . .

. . . When here in the piazza used to dance

The beauteous women, and in triumph home

Returned the Consuls with their captive Kings.

Thus in her flight the Muse is laughing back

Upon the verse in which vain longing throbs

For all the antique beauty that is gone."

from In the Piazza of San Petronio

by Giosue Carducci, tr. by M.W. Arms