Lays of Ancient Rome - 14

Horatius at the Bridge
by Thomas B. Macaulay

XXVII

Then out spake brave Horatius,
       
The Captain of the Gate:
"To every man upon this earth
       
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
       
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
       
And the temples of his gods,

XXVIII

"And for the tender mother
       
Who dandled him to rest,
And for the wife who nurses
       
His baby at her breast,
And for the holy maidens
       
Who feed the eternal flame,
To save them from false Sextus
       
That wrought the deed of shame?

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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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