[K] Praed died on the 15th of July.
[LI]. HORATIUS.[L]
A LAY MADE ABOUT THE YEAR OF THE CITY CCCLX.
Lord Macaulay.—1800-1859.
Lars Porsena of Clusium by the Nine Gods he swore
That the great house of Tarquin should suffer wrong no more.
By the Nine Gods he swore it, and named a trysting day,
And bade his messengers ride forth, east and west and south
and north,
To summon his array.
East and west and south and north the messengers ride fast,
And tower and town and cottage have heard the trumpet's blast.
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 are pouring in amain
From many a stately market-place; from many a fruitful plain;
From many a lonely hamlet, 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 godlike kings of old;
From seagirt Populonia, whose sentinels descry
Sardinia's snowy mountain-tops fringing the southern sky;
From the proud mart of Pisæ, queen of the western waves,
Where ride Massilia's triremes heavy with fair-hair'd slaves;
From where sweet Clanis wanders 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 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.