A LAY MADE ABOUT THE YEAR OF THE CITY 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.

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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;

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.

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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 herdsman 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.

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 alway by Lars Porsenal

Both morn and evening stand;

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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 sunburnt 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.

XVI.

Now from the rock Tarpeian

Could the wan burghers-spy

The line of blazing villages

Red in the midnight sky,