Lays of Ancient Rome - Virginia - 2

Virginia
by Thomas B. Macaulay

Just then, as through one cloudless chink in a black stormy sky
Shines out the dewy morning-star, a fair young girl came by.
With her small tablets in her hand, and her satchel on her arm,
Home she went bounding from the school, nor dreamed of shame or harm;
And past those dreaded axes she innocently ran,
With bright frank brow that had not learned to blush at gaze of man;
And up the Sacred Street she turned, and, as she danced along,
She warbled gayly to herself lines of the good old song,
How for a sport the princes came spurring from the camp,
And found Lucrece, combing the fleece, under the midnight lamp.
The maiden sang as sings the lark, when up he darts his flight,
From his nest in the green April corn, to meet the morning light;
And Appius heard her sweet young voice, and saw her sweet young face,
And loved her with the accursed love of his accursed race,
And all along the Forum, and up the Sacred Street,
His vulture eye pursued the trip of those small glancing feet.
Over the Alban mountains the light of morning broke;
From all the roofs of the Seven Hills curled the thin wreaths of
smoke:

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Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from the great Arab book Thousand and One Nights.

More About This Book

A collection consisting exclusively of war-songs would give an
imperfect, or rather an erroneous, notion of the spirit of the
old Latin ballads.

Scottish poet Macaulay published this in 1842.

Photo, CC-BY-SA-3.0.

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