Part 16 (1/2)

But now no stroke of woodman Is heard by Auser's rill; No hunter tracks the stag's green path Up the Ciminian hill; Unwatched along c.l.i.tumnus Grazes the milk-white steer; Unharmed the water-fowl may dip In the Volsinian mere.

VIII.

The harvests of Arretium This year old men shall reap; This year young boys in Umbro Shall plunge the struggling sheep; And in the vats of Luna This year the must shall foam Round the white feet of laughing girls Whose sires have marched to Rome.

IX.

There be thirty chosen prophets, The wisest of the land, Who always by Lars Porsena Both morn and evening stand; Evening and morn the Thirty Have turned the verses o'er, Traced from the right on linen white By mighty seers of yore.

X.

And with one voice the Thirty Have their glad answer given: ”Go forth, go forth, Lars Porsena; Go forth, beloved of Heaven: Go, and return in glory To Clusium's royal dome, And hang round Nurscia's altars The golden s.h.i.+elds of Rome.”

XI.

And now hath every city Sent up her tale of men; The foot are fourscore thousand, The horse are thousands ten.

Before the gates of Sutrium Is met the great array.

A proud man was Lars Porsena Upon the trysting-day.

XII.

For all the Etruscan armies Were ranged beneath his eye, And many a banished Roman, And many a stout ally; And with a mighty following To join the muster came The Tusculan Mamilius, Prince of the Latian name.

XIII.

But by the yellow Tiber Was tumult and affright: From all the s.p.a.cious champaign To Rome men took their flight.

A mile around the city The throng stopped up the ways; A fearful sight it was to see Through two long nights and days.

XIV.

For aged folk on crutches, And women great with child, And mothers sobbing over babes That clung to them and smiled; And sick men borne in litters High on the necks of slaves, And troops of sunburnt husbandmen With reaping-hooks and staves;

XV.

And droves of mules and a.s.ses Laden with skins of wine, And endless flocks of goats and sheep, And endless herds of kine, And endless trains of wagons That creaked beneath the weight Of corn-sacks and of household goods, Choked every roaring gate.

XVI.

Now, from the rock Tarpeian, Could the wan burghers spy The line of blazing villages Red in the midnight sky, The Fathers of the City, They sat all night and day, For every hour some horseman came With tidings of dismay.

XVII.

To eastward and to westward Have spread the Tuscan bands; Nor house nor fence nor dovecot In Crustumerium stands.

Verbenna down to Ostia Hath wasted all the plain; Astur hath stormed Janiculum, And the stout guards are slain.

XVIII.

I wis, in all the Senate, There was no heart so bold But sore it ached and fast it beat When that ill news was told.

Forthwith up rose the Consul, Up rose the Fathers all; In haste they girded up their gowns And hied them to the wall.

XIX.