From goblets pour the sacred wine,
And make their peace o’er bleeding swine.
There too was Mettus’ body torn
By four-horse cars asunder borne;
Ah, well for thee, had promise sworn,
False Alban, held thee true!
And Tullus dragged the traitor’s flesh
Through wild and wood: the briars looked fresh
With sprinkled gory dew.
Porsenna there with pride elate
Bids Rome to Tarquin ope her gate:
With arms he hems the city in:
Æneas’ sons stand firm to win
Their freedom with their blood:
Enraged and menacing his air,
That Cocles dares the bridge to tear,
And Clœlia breaks her bonds, bold fair.
And swims across the flood.
There Manlius on Tarpeian steep
Stood firm, the Capitol to keep:
The ancient palace-roof you saw
New bristling with Romulean straw.
A silver goose in gilded walls
With flapping wings announce the Gauls;
And through the wood the invaders crept,
And climbed the height while others slept.
Golden their hair on head and chin:
Gold collars deck their milk-white skin:
Short cloaks with colours checked
Shine on their backs: two spears each wields
Of Alpine make: and oblong shields
Their brawny limbs protect.
Luperci here of raiment stripped
And dancing Salii move,
And flamens with their caps wool-tipped,
And shields that fell from Jove;
And high-born dames parade the streets
In pensile cars with cushioned seats.
Far off he sets the gates of Dis,
And Tartarus’ terrible abyss,
And dooms to guilt assigned:
There Catiline on frowning steep
Hangs poised above the infernal deep
With Fury-forms behind:
And righteous souls apart he draws,
With Cato there to give them laws.
’Twixt these in wavy outline rolled
The swelling ocean, all of gold,
Though hoary showed the spray:
Gay dolphins, sheathed in silver scales,
Lash up the water with their tails,
And ’mid the surges play.
There in the midmost meet the sight
The embattled fleets, the Actian fight:
Leucate flames with warlike show,
And golden-red the billows glow.
Here Cæsar, leading from their home
The fathers, people, gods of Rome,
Stands on the lofty stern;
The constellation of his sire
Beams o’er his head, and tongues of fire
About his temples burn,
With favouring Gods and winds to speed
Agrippa forms his line:
The golden beaks, war’s proudest meed,
High on his forehead shine.
There with barbaric troops increased,
Antonius, from the vanquished East,
And distant Red sea-side,
To battle drags the Bactrian bands
And Egypt; and behind him stands
(Foul shame!) the Egyptian bride.
Each from his moorings, on they pour,
And three- toothed beak and back-drawn oar
Plough up in foam the marble floor.
Who saw had deemed that Cyclads, torn
From their firm roots, were onward borne
Colliding on the surge,
That hills with hills in conflict meet:
The mighty chiefs their tower-armed fleet
With such propulsion urge.
With hand or enginery they throw
Live darts ablaze with fiery tow:
The sea-god’s verdant fields look red,
Incarnadined with heaps of dead.
Her native timbrel in her hand,
The queen to battle calls her band,
Infatuate!—nor perceives as yet
Two snakes behind with fangs a-whet.
Anubis and each monster strange
That Egypt’s land reveres
’Gainst Neptune, Venus, Pallas range,
And shake their uncouth spears.
There where they battle, host and host,
Raves grisly Mars, in steel embossed:
The furies frown on high;
With mantle rent glad Discord walks,
Bellona fierce behind her stalks,
Her scourge of crimson dye.
Then Actian Phœbus bends his bow:
Scared by that terror, flies the foe,
Arabia, Egypt, Ind:
The haughty dame in wild defeat
Is shaking out her loosened sheet,
And standing to the wind.
She, wanning o’er with death foreseen,
Through corpses flies, devoted queen,
By wave and Zephyr sped:
While mighty Nile, through all his frame
Deep shuddering for his people’s shame,
His ample vesture opened wide,
Invites the vanquished host to hide
Within his azure bed.
Cæsar, of triple triumph proud,
Pays to Rome’s gods the gift he vowed,
Three hundred fanes of stone;
The live streets ring with shouts and games:
Each shrine is thronged by grateful dames,
Each floor with victims strown.
Himself, bright Phœbus’ gate before,
At leisure tells the offerings o’er,
And fastens on the gorgeous door
The first- fruits of the prey:
There march the captives, all and each,
In garb as diverse as in speech,
A multiform array.
The houseless Nomad there is shown,
And Afric tribes that wear no zone,
And Morini, extreme of men,
And Dahæ, masterless till then:
Gelonians too, with bended bows,
And Leleges, and Carian foes:
Euphrates droops his head, and flows
With less of billowy pride:
Old Rhine extends his branching horns,
And passion- chafed Araxes scorns
The bridge that spans his tide.
Such legends traced on Vulcan’s shield
The wondering chief surveys:
On truth in symbol half revealed
He feasts his hungry gaze,
And high upon his shoulders rears
The fame and fates of unborn years.
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