We walked where Victor Jove was shrined awhile, <br />And passed to Livia's rich red mural show, <br />Whence, thridding cave and Criptoportico, <br />We gained Caligula's dissolving pile. <br /> <br />And each ranked ruin tended to beguile <br />The outer sense, and shape itself as though <br />It wore its marble hues, its pristine glow <br />Of scenic frieze and pompous peristyle. <br /> <br />When lo, swift hands, on strings nigh over-head, <br />Began to melodize a waltz by Strauss: <br />It stirred me as I stood, in Caesar's house, <br />Raised the old routs Imperial lyres had led, <br /> <br />And blended pulsing life with lives long done, <br />Till Time seemed fiction, Past and Present one.<br /><br />Thomas Hardy<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/rom-on-the-palatine-april-1887/
