Lays of Ancient Rome

Name: Lays of Ancient Rome
Author: Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron

Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron

Rome -- History -- Poetry

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;

               V

     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.

               VI

     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.

               IX

     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.

               X

     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."

               XI

     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

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Lays of Ancient Rome

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