And Pales loves the straw-built shed
Warm with the breath of kine;
And Venus loves the whispers
Of plighted youth and maid,
In April's ivory moonlight,

Beneath the chesnut shade.

"But thy father loves the clashing
Of broadsword and of shield:

He loves to drink the stream that reeks
From the fresh battle-field:

He smiles a smile more dreadful

Than his own dreadful frown,

When he sees the thick black cloud of smoke
Go up from the conquered town.

"And such as is the War-god,
The author of thy line,
And such as she who suckled thee,
Even such be thou and thine.
Leave to the soft Campanian

66

His bath and his perfumes;
Leave to the sordid race of Tyre
Their dyeing-vats and looms;
Leave to the sons of Carthage
The rudder and the oar;

Leave to the Greek his marble nymphs,
And scrolls of wordy lore.

'Thine, Roman, is the pilum:

Roman, the sword is thine,

The even trench, the bristling mound,
The legion's ordered line;
And thine the wheels of triumph,
Which, with their laurelled train,
Move slowly up the shouting streets
To Jove's eternal fane.

L

"Beneath thy yoke the Volscian
Shall vail his lofty brow:
Soft Capua's curled revellers
Before thy chairs shall bow:
The Lucumoes of Arnus

Shall quake thy rods to see;
And the proud Samnite's heart of steel
Shall yield to only thee.

"The Gaul shall come against thee From the land of snow and night; Thou shalt give his fair-haired armies To the raven and the kite.

The Greek shall come against thee,

The conqueror of the East. Beside him stalks to battle

The huge earth-shaking beast, The beast on whom the castle With all its guards doth stand, The beast who hath between his eyes The serpent for a hand. First march the bold Epirotes,

Wedged close with shield and spear; And the ranks of false Tarentum Are glittering in the rear.

"The ranks of false Tarentum Like hunted sheep shall fly:

In vain the bold Epirotes

Shall round their standards die :

And Apennine's grey vultures

Shall have a noble feast

On the fat and the eyes

Of the huge earth-shaking beast.

"Hurrah! for the good weapons

That keep the War-god's land.
Hurrah! for Rome's stout pilum
In a stout Roman hand.

Hurrah! for Rome's short broadsword,
That through the thick array

Of levelled spears and serried shields
Hews deep its gory way.

*

"Then where, o'er two bright havens,
The towers of Corinth frown;
Where the gigantic King of Day
On his own Rhodes looks down;
Where soft Orontes murmurs
Beneath the laurel shades;
Where Nile reflects the endless length
Of dark-red colonnades;

Where, in the still deep water,

Sheltered from waves and blasts,

Bristles the dusky forest

Of Byrsa's thousand masts;

Where fur-clad hunters wander

Amidst the northern ice;

Where through the sand of morning-land

The camel bears the spice;

Where Atlas flings his shadow

Far o'er the western foam,

Shall be great fear on all who hear

The mighty name of Rome."

MACAULAY.

GUDRUN.

By her Sigurd's blood-stained bier,
As with equal death opprest,
Gudrun sat; she shed no tear,

Her hand she smote not on her breast:
Word, nor sign, nor act might show
The wonted course of woman's woe.

Sages came, the wisest they,

But vain the aids from art they borrow; Can rhetoric soothe, or reason sway, That stern mood of deepest sorrow, When the heart to bursting swells, Yet no tear its anguish tells?

Round her pressed a widowed train,
Sisters they, in grief united,
Calling back long scenes of pain,

Each her own sad tale recited:

Vainly thus to wake they try
The soothing power of sympathy.

Vainly; for her anguished mind,

Stunned beneath that sudden blow, Hardens, to itself confined,

Nor opens to another's woe.

Hard and cold was Gudrun's soul,
Nor sigh would rise, nor tear would roll.

Last did youthful Gulrand speak-
"Matrons, though in wisdom old,
Here, I ween, your skill is weak;
Age's counsels, all too cold,
Cannot reach the widowed heart,

When youth's strong loves are rent apart."

With hurrying hand, from Sigurd's bier,
Swept she then the pall away:
"On him, thy love, look, Gudrun dear!
To his cold lip thy warm lip lay;
And round him, as they still could hold
Thy living lord, thine arms enfold.”

Gudrun turned-one hurried glance

On that much-loved form she threwA moment viewed, where murder's lance Had pierced the breast to her so true; Saw stiff with blood those locks of gold, And quenched that eye so bright, so bold.

She saw, and sank, and low reclined

Hid in the couch her throbbing head:
Her loose veil floated unconfined,

Her burning cheek was crimsoned red:
Then, her bursting heart's relief,
Copious fell the shower of grief.a

Translated, in "Conybeare's Anglo-Saxon Poetry," from an Icelandic Poem.