She is sweet with the sweetness of springtime--
A tear and a smile in an hour--
Yet I ask not release from her slightest caprice,
My love with the face of a flower.
My love with the grace of the lily
That sways on its slender fair stem,
My love with the bloom of the rosebud,
White pearl in my life's diadem!
You may call her coquette if it please you,
Enchanting, if shy or if bold,
Is my darling, my winsome wee lassie,
Whose birthdays are three, when all told.
Horatius.[1]
_A Lay Made About the Year of the City CCCLX._
By T.B. MACAULAY.
I.
Lars Porsena of Clusium
By the Nine Gods 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.
II.
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!
III.
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;
IV.
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