Part 3

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;

From lordly Volaterræ, Where scowls the far-famed hold Piled by the hands of giants For godlike kings of old; From seagirt Populonia, Whose sentinels descry Sardinia's snowy mountain-tops Fringing the southern sky;

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.

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 Volsminian 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.

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 By mighty seers of yore.

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."

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 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 folks 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,

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. The Fathers of the City, They sat all night and day, For every hour some horseman come With tidings of dismay.

XVII

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.

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

They held a council standing, Before the River-Gate; Short time was there, ye well may guess, For musing or debate. Out spake the Consul roundly: "The bridge must straight go down; For, since Janiculum is lost, Nought else can save the town."

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 Consol fixed his eye, And saw the swarthy storm of dust Rise fast along the sky.