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

PROGRAMME NO. 1.

HORATIUS.

A LAY MADE ABOUT THE YEAR OF ROME CCCLX.

I.

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!

2

III.

The norsemen 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;

17

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 Pisa,
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.