Lays of Ancient Rome - 6

Horatius at the Bridge
by Thomas B. Macaulay

XI

And now hath every city
        Sent up her tale of men;
The foot are fourscore thousand,
        The horse are thousands ten.
Before the gates of Sutrium
        Is met the great array.
A proud man was Lars Porsena
        Upon the trysting day.

XII

For all the Etruscan armies
        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
The Tusculan Mamilius,
        Prince of the Latian name.

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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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