Tarentine oysters and sweet wines from Thrace. THE FORLORN CAMPAIGN THE FORLORN CAMPAIGN [CRASSUS IN PARTHIA. B. C. 53] Go then, Valerius. Let the legions know, That I will answer this new embassy Within the hour.... They will mutiny, If I refuse these terms.... What shall I do? _What shall I do?_ The trap is plain enough To me; but they, they only see the rough, Long road and the red, ever-circling cloud Of horsemen, raining arrows on them there. Gods! And the mountains are so near, so near! Scarce three days march ... that we shall never make. I boasted once. The gods like not the proud. And I shall die in this red waste of sand, Though my heart tremble and my stiff limbs shake. A thousand slaves bowed down at my command; I lived in ivory palaces of delight; I ruled an empire ... here is all my might; An old and wearied man in a bare tent, Whence, presently, I shall go out to die. How they will rage at Rome! Each will outvie The next in fury: none will dare lament. Caesar will listen with a little smile, A smile like two blue ice-cliffs as they part, Slow-rising from the deep caves of his heart. Pompey will bow his great gold head awhile, And say, “He died a Roman. It is well.” Perhaps be sad, a little. For the rest, That yelping pack of nobles, they will howl How, “Crassus was a madman at the best, And in this last attempt, a blind old owl, A drink-crazed miser with a wooden sword. He blundered here and here! His whole campaign Was one great blunder!” So with one accord, They howl. To praise is hard, easy to damn. I failed in this. Some other will succeed. Yet they are right, in part. That day, far back, When by the borderline I checked my steed.... Our spies had said the Parthian army lay Encamped near by and ready for the fray. We found no army; nothing but a track, Thousands of footprints stamped in the red sand, Where a great host had passed. A sudden fear Seized on the legions and on every hand The men shrank back.... No foe stood anywhere, Nothing but scarlet sand and brassy sky, And men aghast at signs traced on the ground, A ring of white, scared faces, without sound.