VII

  But now no stroke of woodman 50
    Is heard by Auser’s rill;
  No hunter tracks the stag’s green path
    Up the Ciminian hill;
  Unwatched along Clitumnus
    Grazes the milk-white steer; 55
  Unharmed the waterfowl may dip
    In the Volsinian mere.

  VIII

  The harvests of Arretium,[13]
    This year, old men shall reap,
  This year, young boys in Umbro[14] 60
    Shall plunge the struggling sheep;
  And in the vats of Luna,
    This year, the must[15] shall foam
  Round the white feet of laughing girls
    Whose sires have marched to Rome.

  IX

  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 70
    Have turned the verses o’er,
  Traced from the right[16] on linen white
    By mighty seers of yore,

  X

  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,

  XV

  And droves of mules and asses
    Laden with skins of wine, 115
  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, 120
    Choked every roaring gate.