Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/273

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,