Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/211

  Messapus, tamer of the steed,
The Ocean-monarch's mighty seed,
Whom none might harm, so willed his sire,
With force of iron or of fire,
Awakes his people's slumbering zeal 5
Long time unused to war's appeal,
And from the scabbard bares the steel.
With him Fescennia's armed train,
The dwellers in Falerii's plain,
Who hold Soracte's lofty hill 10
Or fair Flavinia's cornland till,
Capena's woods their dwelling make
Or Ciminus, its mount and lake.
With measured pace they march along,
And make their monarch's deeds their song; 15
Like snow-white swans in liquid air,
When homeward from their food they fare,
And far and wide melodious notes
Come rippling from their slender throats,
While the broad stream and Asia's fen 20
Reverberate to the sound again.
Sure none had thought that countless crowd
  A mail-clad company;
It rather seemed a dusky cloud
Of migrant fowl, that, hoarse and loud, 25
    Press landward from the sea.

  Lo! Clausus there, the Sabines' boast,
Leads a great host, himself a host;
Whence spreads the Claudian race, since Rome
With Sabine burghers shared her home. 30
With him the Amiternians came
And Cures' sons of ancient name,
The squadron that Eretum guards
And green Mutusca's olive-yards.
Those whom Nomentum's city yields, 35
Who till Velinus' Rosean fields,
Who Tetrica's rude summit climb
Or on Severus sits sublime,
Or dwell where runs Hemella by
Casperia's walls and Foruli, 40
Who Tiber haunt and Fabaris' banks,