Lays of Ancient Rome - 17

Horatius at the Bridge
by Thomas B. Macaulay

XXXIII

Now Roman is to Roman
       
More hateful than a foe,
And the Tribunes beard the high,
       
And the Fathers grind the low.
As we wax hot in faction,
       
In battle we wax cold:
Wherefore men fight not as they fought
       
In the brave days of old.

XXXIV

Now while the Three were tightening
       
Their harness on their backs,
The Consul was the foremost man
       
To take in hand an axe:
And Fathers mixed with Commons
       
Seized hatchet, bar, and crow,
And smote upon the planks above,
       
And loosed the props below.

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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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