| Buscas en Roma a Roma, ¡oh, peregrino!,
| You search in Rome for Rome - oh, peregrine! -
| y en Roma misma a Roma no la hallas;
| and Rome in Rome itself you cannot find;
| cadáver son las que ostentó murallas,
| the walls she flaunted gape as corpses blind,
| y tumba de sí proprio el Aventino.
| its own sepulture is the Aventine.
| Yace donde reinaba el Palatino;
| There lies, where once he reigned, the Palatine;
| y limadas del tiempo, las medallas
| and Time has rasped her medals down, so that
| más se muestran destrozo a las batallas
| they look more like the relics of combat
| de las edades que blasón latino.
| in ages gone than great Latium’s signs.
| Sólo el Tibre quedó, cuya corriente,
| Only the Tiber yet endures, whose current,
| si ciudad la regó, ya sepoltura
| As it once washed the city, now bemoans the
| la llora con funesto son doliente.
| tomb with tones sepulchrally susurrant.
| ¡Oh, Roma!, en tu grandeza, en tu hermosura,
| Rome! In your beauty, your magnificence,
| huyó lo que era firme, y solamente
| All that stood strong and firm has flown, and only
| lo fugitivo permanece y dura.
| the fugitive remains with permanence.
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