To Evening and morn the Thirty
Have turned the verses o'er,

Traced from the right on linen white
By mighty seers of yore.

10

And with one voice the Thirty
75 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,
85 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

90 For all the Etruscan armies

Were ranged beneath his eye,

72. The Etruscan writing was from right to left. 83. Tale of men. Compare Milton's lines in L' Allegro,· "And every shepherd tells his tale

Under the hawthorn, in the dale.”

The tally which we keep is a kindred word.

86. Sutrium is Sutri to-day.

And many a banished Roman,

And many a stout ally; And with a mighty following 35 To join the muster came The Tusculan Mamilius,

Prince of the Latian name.

13

But by the yellow Tiber

Was tumult and affright:
100 From all the spacious champaign
To Rome men took their flight.
A mile around the city,

105

The throng stopped up the ways;
A fearful sight it was to see
Through two long nights and days.

14

For aged folks on crutches, And women great with child, And mothers sobbing over babes That clung to them and smiled, 110 And sick men borne in litters High on the necks of slaves, And troops of sunburnt husbandmen With reaping-hooks and staves,

115

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 wagons

That creaked beneath the weight

120 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
125 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

130 To eastward and to westward

135

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

Iwis, in all the Senate,

There was no heart so bold,

122. The Tarpeian rock was a cliff on the steepest side of the Capitoline Hill in Rome, and overhung the Tiber.

123. Burghers. Macaulay uses a very modern word to describe the men of Rome.

126. The Fathers of the City, otherwise the Senators of Rome. 134. Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber, was the port of Rome. 136. The Janiculan Hill was on the right bank of the Tiber. 138. Iwis. Compare Lowell's lines in Credidimus Jovem regnare: "God vanished long ago, iwis,

A mere subjective synthesis."

Its meaning is "certainly."

140 But sore it ached, and fast it beat,

145

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.

150 Out spake the Consul roundly:

155

"The bridge must straight go down;

For, since Janiculum is lost,

Naught 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,

160 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,

165 From underneath that rolling cloud,

151. The bridge was the Sublician bridge, said to have been thrown across the Tiber by Ancus Martius in the year 114 of the city.

Is heard the trumpet's war-note proud,

The trampling, and the hum.
And plainly and more plainly

Now through the gloom appears,
170 Far to left and far to right,

175

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;
But the banner of proud Clusium
Was highest of them all,

180 The terror of the Umbrian,

185

The terror of the Gaul.

23

And plainly and more plainly
Now might the burghers know,
By port and vest, by horse and crest,

Each warlike Lucumo.

There Cilnius of Arretium

On his fleet roan was seen;

And Astur of the fourfold shield,

Girt with the brand none else may wield,

190 Tolumnius with the belt of gold,

177. The Etruscan confederacy was composed of twelve cities. 184. By port and vest, i. e., by the way he carried himself and by his dress. Vest, an abbreviation of vesture.

185. Lucumo was the name given by the Latin writers to the Etruscan chiefs.