The medieval pomp and civic pride
Which once made Pisa famous, long have lain
Forgotten with her pageants brief and vain
That flashed inconstant on the Arno's tide.
But, toned to softened hues, her walls abide,
Enclosing baptistery, tower, and fane
Wherein yet swings the lamp with brazen chain
That marked the pendulum's time-measured stride
And though the centuries, in lengthening roll,
Show ever fainter through perspective time
The fame depicted in the mouldering scroll,
They cannot dim the shining aureole
Around Galileo's name. Each hourly chime
Proclaims the law that swung the girandole.