Where through the sand of morning land The camel bears the spice; Where Atlas flings his shadow Far o'er the western foam, From many a stately market place ; 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 Pisa, Tall are the oaks whose acorns Fat are the stags that champ the boughs Beyond all streams Clitumnus Is to the herdsman dear; Best of all pools the fowler loves But now no stroke of woodman No hunter tracks the stag's green path Grazes the milk-white steer; In the Volsinian mere. 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, 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 "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 Is met the great array. A proud man was Lars Porsena For all the Etruscan armies The Tusculan Mamilius, Prince of the Latian name. 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; CH. LIT. VII-7 A fearful sight it was to see 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. Now, from the rock Tarpeian, They sat all night and day, 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. I wis, in all the Senate, There was no heart so bold, |