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.

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.

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!

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.

THE TROUBLE IN ROME

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.

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,

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 the weight Of corn-sacks and of household goods, Choked every roaring gate.

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.

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
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.

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

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.

And plainly and more plainly
Above that glimmering line
Now might ye see the banners

Of twelve fair cities shine;