ARS PORSENA of Clusium By the Nine Gods he swore And bade his messengers ride forth, East and west and south and north And tower and town and cottage Shame on the false Etruscan Who lingers in his home, When Porsena of Clusium Is on the march for Rome. The horsemen and the footmen N From many a stately market-place, Which, hid by beech and pine, Like an eagle's nest hangs on the crest Of purple Apennine; From lordly Volaterræ, Where scowls the far-famed hold Piled by the hands of giants, For god-like kings of old; From sea-girt Populonia, Whose sentinels descry Sardinia's snowy mountain-tops Fringing the southern sky; From the proud mart of Pisæ, 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 But now no stroke of woodman No hunter tracks the stag's green path, Grazes the milk-white steer; In the Volsinian mere. The harvests of Arretium This old men shall reap; year This year young boys in Umbro This year, the must shall foam Round the white feet of laughing girls Whose sires have marched to Rome. There be thirty chosen prophets, Both morn and evening stand: Have turned the verses o'er, And with one voice the Thirty "Go forth, go forth, Lars Porsena, To Clusium's royal dome, And now hath every city Is met the great array, 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 For aged folk on crutches, And women great with child, And droves of mules and asses And endless flocks of goats and sheep, That creaked beneath their weight Of corn-sacks and of household goods, Choked every roaring gate. Now, from the rock Tarpeian, To eastward and to westward Have spread the Tuscan bands; |