VII

 
You sacred ruins, and you holy shores,
You that, alone, the name of Rome retain,
Old monuments, that still in dust maintain
Those divine spirits’ ever-honoured cause.

Triumphal arches, domes at heaven’s doors,
That an astonished heaven sees full plain,
Alas, by degrees, turned to dust again.
The people’s fable that the public gnaws!

And though awhile against Time they make war,
These buildings still, yet it must be that Time
In the end, both works and names, will flaw.

Sad longing, rest content then: for if Time
Makes an end of things that so endure,
The pain too that I suffer it must cure.