Lays of Ancient Rome - 1

Horatius at the Bridge
by Thomas B. Macaulay

I

Lars Porsena of Closium
        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.

II

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.

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Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from the great Arab book Thousand and One Nights.

More About This Book

This poem celebrates one of the great heroic legends of history. Horatius saves Rome from the Etruscan invaders in 642 BC. Scottish poet Macaulay published this in 1842.

Illustration: Horatio at the Bridge from the first edition.

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