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[3-7] name.
But by the yellow Tiber
Was tumult and affright:
From all the spacious champaign[3-8]
To Rome men took their flight.
A mile around the city,
The throng stopped 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 sunburnt 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 creaked beneath the weight
Of corn-sacks and of household goods,
Choked every roaring gate.
Now, from the rock Tarpeian[4-9]
Could the wan burghers spy
The line of blazing villages
Red in the midnight sky.
The Fathers of the City,[5-10]
They sat all night and day,
For every hour some horseman came
With tidings of dismay.
To eastward and to westward
Have spread the Tuscan bands;
Nor house nor fence nor dovecote
In Crustumerium stands.
Verbenna down to Ostia[5-11]
Hath wasted all the plain;
Astur hath stormed Janiculum,[5-12]
And the stout guards are slain.
Iwis,[5-13] in all the Senate,
There was no heart so bold,
But sore it ached, and fast it beat,
When that ill news was told.
Forthwith up rose the Consul,[5-14]
Uprose the Fathers all;
In haste they girded up their gowns,
And hied them to the wall.
They held a council standing
Before the River-Gate;
Short time was there, ye well may guess,
For musing or debate.
Out spake the Consul roundly:
“The bridge must straight go down;
For since Janiculum is lost,
Naught else can save the town.”
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,
And saw the swarthy storm of dust
Rise fast along the sky.
And nearer fast and nearer
Doth the red whirlwind come;
And louder still and still more loud,
From underneath that rolling cloud,
Is heard the trumpet’s war-note proud,
The trampling, and the hum.
And plainly and more plainly
Now through the gloom appears,
Far to left and far to right,
In broken gleams of dark-blue light,
The long array of helmets bright,
The long array of spears.