Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/273

Rh Or dwell where runs Himella by

Casperia's walls and Foruli,

Who Tiber haunt and Fabaris' banks,

Whom Nursia sends to battle down

From her cold home, Hortinian ranks

And Latian tribes of old renown,

With those whom Allia's stream ill-starred

Flows through, dividing sward from sward:

Thick as the Libyan billows swarm

When fell Orion sets in storm,

Or as the sun-baked ears of grain

In Hæmus' field or Lycia's plain:

Their bucklers rattle, and the ground

Quakes, startled by their footfall's sound.

Halæsus, Agamemnon's seed,

Sworn foe to all of Trojan breed,

Yokes his swift horses to the car,

And brings his hosts to Turnus' war,

The rustic tribes whose ploughshare tills

The vine-clad slopes of Massic hills,

Or whom from plain or mountain height

Auruncan fathers send to fight,

Who fertile Cales leave behind

Or where Vulturnian waters wind,

The dwellers on Saticule's rock

And all the hardy Oscan stock.

Bright javelins they are wont to fling,

But fit them with a leathern string:

A shield protects the good left hand,

And curved like pruner's hook the brand

They wield when foot to foot they stand.

Nor, Œbalus, shalt thou pass by

Unnamed in this our minstrelsy,