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.

7.

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.

8.

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.

9.

There be thirty chosen prophets,
The wisest of the land,
Who alway 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

1

By mighty seers of yore.

10.

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 shields of Rome."

11.

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.

12.

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.

13.

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.

14.

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 sun-burned husbandmen With reaping-hooks and staves,

15.

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 waggons

That creaked beneath their weight Of corn-sacks and of household goods, Choked every roaring gate.

16.

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.

17.

To eastward and to westward

Have spread the Tuscan bands; Nor house, nor fence, nor dovecote, In Crustumerium stands.

Verbenna down to Ostia

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

18.

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.

19.

They held a council standing

Before the River-gate;

Short time was there, ye well may guess, For musing or debate.

Out spoke the Consul roundly:

"The bridge must straight go down;

For, since Janiculum is lost,
Nought else can save the town.”

20.

Just then a scout came flying,

All wild with haste and fear: "To arms! to arms! Sir Consul;

Lars Porsena is here."

On the low hills to westward
The Consul fixed his eye,
And saw the swarthy storm of dust
Rise fast along the sky.

21.

And nearer fast and nearer

Doth the red whirlwind come;
And louder still and still more loud,
From underneath that rolling cloud,
Is heard the trumpet's war-note proud,
The trampling, and the hum.
And plainly and more plainly

Now through the gloom appears,
Far to left and far to right,
In broken gleams of dark-blue light,
The long array of helmets bright,
The long array of spears.

22.

And plainly and more plainly,

Above that glimmering line, Now might ye see the banners Of twelve fair cities shine;