BREVITIES

SUITABLE FOR RESPONSES TO ENCORES.

She WANTED A WARRANT. Brooklyn Eagle

407

To A GORILLA IN A MENAGERIE. F. W. Clarke

TOTAL ANNIHILATION. Anonymous
Paddy's EXAMINATION. Anonymous
TO THE TERRESTRIAL GLOBE. W. S. Gilbert
AN EQUIVOCAL ANSWER. Anonymous
MR. DIFFIDENT'S SPEECH. Anonymous

410

411

411

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PROGRAMME NO. 1.

HORATIUS.

I.

A LAY MADE ABOUT THE YEAR OF ROME CCCLX.

LARS PORSENA of Clusium,

By the nine gods he swore
That the great house of Tarquin

Should suffer wrong no more.
By the nine gods he swore it,

And named a trysting day,
And bade his messengers ride forth,
East and west and south and north,

To summon his array.

II.

East and west and south and north

The messengers ride fast,
And tower and town and cottage

Have heard the trumpet's blast.
Shame on the false Etruscan

Who lingers in his home,
When Porsena of Clusium

Is on the march for Rome!

III.

The horsemen and the footmen

Are pouring in amain
From many a stately market-place,

From many a fruitful plain,
From many a lonely hamlet,

Which, hid by beech and pine,
Like an eagle's nest hangs on the crest

Of purple Apennine;

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IV.

From lordly Volaterræ,

Where scowls the far-famed hold Piled by the hands of giants

For godlike kings of old; From sea-girt Populonia,

Whose sentinels descry Sardinia's snowy mountain-tops

Fringing the southern sky;

V.

From the proud mart of Pisæ,

Queen of the western waves, Where ride Massilia's triremes,

Heavy with fair-haired slaves; From where sweet Clanis wanders

Through corn and vines and flowers From where Cortona lifts to heaven

Her diadem of towers.

VI.

Tall are the oaks whose acorns

Drop in dark Auser's rill; Fat are the stags that champ the boughs

Of the Ciminian hill;
Beyond all streams, Clitumnus

Is to the herdman dear;
Best of all pools the fowler loves

The great Volsinian mere.

VII.

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 Clitumnus

Grazes the milk-white steer; Unharmed the water-fowl may dip

In the Volsinian mere.

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 spacious 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 sunburned husbandmen

With reaping-hooks and staves,

XV.

And droves of mules and asses

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.