Omnes viae

Rome:

You search in Rome for Rome? Oh traveller!
In Rome itself there is no room for Rome,
a corpse is all its churches put on show,
the Aventine is its own mound and tomb.
There, where the Palatifie once towered and reigned,
are medals ruined by the hands of time,
they show how more was lost to chance and time
than Hannibal or Caesar could consume.
The Tiber flows still, but its current guards
a city that has fallen in its grave—
each wave's a woman tearing at her breast.
Oh Rome! From all your beauty, all your grandeur,
whatever once was firm has fled . . . what once
was fugitive maintains its permanence. 

Robert Lowell.