Lays of Ancient Rome. Томас Бабингтон Маколей

           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-haired 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;

           Unwatched along Clitumnus

                Grazes the milk-white steer;

           Unharmed the water fowl may dip

                In the Volsminian 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 marched to Rome.

           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

                Have turned the verses o'er,

           Traced from the right on linen white

                By mighty seers of yore.

           And with one voice the Thirty

                Have their glad answer given:

           "Go forth, go forth, Lars Porsena;

                Go forth, beloved of Heaven;

           Go, and return in glory

                To Clusium's royal dome;