You search in Rome for Rome, oh wanderer!,
                       and yet in Rome itself you don't find Rome:
                       the walls boasting its fame are now a corpse,
                       the Aventine now serves as its own tomb.

                       It lies now where the Palatine once reigned;
                       and its medallions, worn away by time,
                       show more the devastation of the battles
                       of the ages than great Latium's pride.

                       Only the Tiber has remained, whose flow,
                       if once a city watered, now, a grave,
                       it mourns for her with brokenhearted tones.

                       Oh Rome!, of all your greatness, your allure,
                       that which was firm has fled, and nothing but
                       what is elusive stays and will endure.

                                                    -Francisco de Quevedo