The swimming Campanile tower,
The giants, hammering out the hour,
The palaces, the bright lagoons,
The gondolas gliding here and there
Upon the tide that sways and swoons.

The domes of San Antonio,
Where Padua 'mid her mulberry-trees
Reclines; Adige's crescent flow
Beneath Verona's balconies;
Rich Florence of the Medicis;
Sienna's starlike streets that climb
From hill to hill; Assisi well
Remembering the holy spell
Of rapt St. Francis; with her crown
Of battlements, embossed by time,
Stern old Perugia looking down.

Then, mother of great empires, Rome,
City of the majestic past,
That o'er far leagues of alien foam
The shadows of her eagles cast,
Imperious still; impending, vast,

The Colosseum's curving line;
Pillar and arch and colonnade;
St. Peter's consecrated shade,
And Hadrian's tomb where Tiber strays;
The ruins on the Palatine
With all their memories of dead days.