When sun hangs low and Rome is swathed
in faded gold on winter days
Like Nero creeps the hooded night
To set the dimming skies ablaze

The Emperors now seem no more real
than painted figures on a page
Than onyx head on cameo
or villain strutting on a stage

Those tyrants with their pleasure boats
their marble spas and saffron pools
Who smothered guests in flower drifts
and set their palace walls with jewels

Who lazed in frescoed gardens filled
with citrus fruit and roaming beasts
And gorged on grapes and peacock brain
while hosting wild and lavish feasts

Their temples walls and aqueducts
still stand upon the Hills of Rome
But now they bear a jaded air
like moulderlng golden honeycomb

And so we build our citadels
and rich make fortress of their wealth
But none can halt the March of Time
that sieges all with lichen-stealth

Indeed it matters not if one
is born patrician or a slave
When even those who don the purple
face the shadow of the grave

Their palaces are relics now
once gleaming bronze is stained with rust
While pillars crumble, marble cracks
and flow'ring Empires turn to dust

And 'midst this splendour and decay
I think of all that once was mine
Of ruins and the sighing pine
as sun sets on the Palatine