And with one voice the Thirty
Have their glad answer given: 75
"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[17] altars 80
The golden shields[18] of Rome."
XI
And now hath every city
Sent up her tale[19] of men:
The foot are fourscore thousand,
The horse are thousands ten. 85
Before the gates of Sutrium[20]
Is met the great array.
A proud man was Lars Porsena
Upon the trysting day.
XII
For all the Etruscan armies 90
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 95
The Tusculan Mamilius,[21]
Prince of the Latian[22] name.
XIII
But by the yellow Tiber
Was tumult and affright:
From all the spacious champaign 100
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. 105
XIV
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 110
High on the necks of slaves,
And troops of sunburnt husbandmen
With reaping-hooks and staves,