Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6

A NEW AND ORIGINAL
PLAN FOR READING APPLIED TO THE
WORLD’S BEST LITERATURE
FOR CHILDREN

BY
CHARLES H. SYLVESTER
Author of English and American Literature

VOLUME SIX
New Edition

Chicago
BELLOWS-REEVE COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1922
BELLOWS-REEVE COMPANY

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

HORATIUS

Lars Porsena of Clusium1-1
By the Nine Gods1-2 he swore
That the great house of Tarquin
Should suffer wrong no more.
By the Nine Gods he swore it,
And named a trysting day,
And bade his messengers ride forth
East and west and south and north,
To summon his array.

East and west and south and north
The messengers ride fast,
And tower and town and cottage
Have heard the trumpet’s blast.
Shame on the false Etruscan
Who lingers in his home,
When Porsena of Clusium
Is on the march for Rome.

The horsemen and the footmen
Are pouring in amain
From many a stately market-place;
From many a fruitful plain.
From many a lonely hamlet,
Which, hid by beech and pine,
Like an eagle’s nest, hangs on the crest
Of purple Apennine;

 * * * * * * * *

There be thirty chosen prophets,
The wisest of the land,
Who alway by Lars Porsena
Both morn and evening stand:
Evening and morn the Thirty
Have turned the verses o’er,
Traced from the right on linen white2-3
By mighty seers of yore.

And with one voice the Thirty
Have their glad answer given:
“Go forth, go forth, Lars Porsena;
Go forth, beloved of Heaven:
Go, and return in glory
To Clusium’s royal dome;
And hang round Nurscia’s3-4 altars
The golden shields of Rome.”

And now hath every city
Sent up her tale3-5 of men:
The foot are fourscore thousand,
The horse are thousand ten.
Before the gates of Sutrium3-6
Is met the great array.
A proud man was Lars Porsena
Upon the trysting day.

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 Latian3-7 name.

But by the yellow Tiber
Was tumult and affright:
From all the spacious champaign3-8
To Rome men took their flight.
A mile around the city,
The throng stopped up the ways;
A fearful sight it was to see
Through two long nights and days.

For aged folks on crutches,
And women great with child,
And mothers sobbing over babes
That clung to them and smiled,
And sick men borne in litters
High on the necks of slaves,
And troops of sunburnt husbandmen
With reaping-hooks and staves,

And droves of mules and asses
Laden with skins of wine,
And endless flocks of goats and sheep,
And endless herds of kine,
And endless trains of wagons
That creaked beneath the weight
Of corn-sacks and of household goods,
Choked every roaring gate.

Now, from the rock Tarpeian4-9
Could the wan burghers spy
The line of blazing villages
Red in the midnight sky.
The Fathers of the City,5-10
They sat all night and day,
For every hour some horseman came
With tidings of dismay.

To eastward and to westward
Have spread the Tuscan bands;
Nor house nor fence nor dovecote
In Crustumerium stands.
Verbenna down to Ostia5-11
Hath wasted all the plain;
Astur hath stormed Janiculum,5-12
And the stout guards are slain.

Iwis,5-13 in all the Senate,
There was no heart so bold,
But sore it ached, and fast it beat,
When that ill news was told.
Forthwith up rose the Consul,5-14
Uprose the Fathers all;
In haste they girded up their gowns,
And hied them to the wall.

They held a council standing
Before the River-Gate;
Short time was there, ye well may guess,
For musing or debate.
Out spake the Consul roundly:
“The bridge must straight go down;
For since Janiculum is lost,
Naught else can save the town.”

Just then a scout came flying,
All wild with haste and fear;
“To arms! to arms! Sir Consul:
Lars Porsena is here.”
On the low hills to westward
The Consul fixed his eye,
And saw the swarthy storm of dust
Rise fast along the sky.

And nearer fast and nearer
Doth the red whirlwind come;
And louder still and still more loud,
From underneath that rolling cloud,
Is heard the trumpet’s war-note proud,
The trampling, and the hum.
And plainly and more plainly
Now through the gloom appears,
Far to left and far to right,
In broken gleams of dark-blue light,
The long array of helmets bright,
The long array of spears.

And plainly, and more plainly
Above that glimmering line,
Now might ye see the banners
Of twelve fair cities shine;
But the banner of proud Clusium
Was highest of them all,
The terror of the Umbrian,
The terror of the Gaul.

Fast by the royal standard,
O’erlooking all the war,
Lars Porsena of Clusium
Sat in his ivory car.
By the right wheel rode Mamilius,
Prince of the Latian name,
And by the left false Sextus,7-15
That wrought the deed of shame.