Michael Shepherd - ! ! Rilke in Rome

The chance remains of another time
and a life that is not ours...
no, there is not 'more' beauty here than elsewhere -
but there is much beauty here,
for there is much beauty everywhere.

Waters unendingly full of life move along the old aqueducts
into the great city
and dance in the many squares over white stone basins
and spread out in wide spacious pools
and murmur by day
and lift up their murmuring to the night
that is large and starry here and soft with winds.

And gardens are here, unforgettable avenues
and flights of stairs, stairs designed by Michelangelo,
stairs that are built after the pattern
of downward-gliding waters - broadly bringing forth
step out of step in their descent
like wave after wave.

Through such impressions one collects oneself,
wins oneself back again,
and learns slowly to recognize the very few things
in which the eternal endures
that one can love.

Michael Shepherd

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/rilke-in-rome/