And the Tiber turns to gold.

Why, indifferent to this splendor,
Do the people throng the streets?
What is everyone demanding
Of the stranger whom he meets?
They have heard alas! the rumor
That, ere dawn regilds the sky,
All the world may be in mourning,
For the Emperor must die.

Search, O Romans, through the annals
Of the rulers of your race,
From the zenith of their glory
To their ultimate disgrace,--
And as earth's most perfect master,
And the noblest of your line,
You will yield your greatest homage
To this dying Antonine.

For he holds a Caesar's sceptre
In a loving father's hand,
And his heart and soul are given
To the welfare of his land;
Through his justice every nation
Hath beheld its warfare cease,
And he leaves to his successor
Rome's gigantic world at peace.

Hence these nations now are waiting