hat 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;
Unwatch'd along Clitumnus grazes the milk-white steer;
Unharm'd the waterfowl 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 march'd
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 turn'd 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, belov'd 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 banish'd Roman, and many a stout ally;
And with a mighty following to join the muster came
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 stopp'd up the ways;
A fearful sight it was to see through two long nights and days.
For aged folks 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-burn'd 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 wagons that creak'd beneath the weight
Of corn-sacks and of household goods, choked every roaring gate.

Now, from the rock Tarpeian, could