The Dawn in Britain :: :: University of Virginia Library

When that long winter, entering now the sun,
In Aries, past; behold the legate Aulus,
From winter-camps, again, leads forth his legions;
The fourteenth, ninth and twentieth, to Gaul's shore;
Which chosen in Rome, for the Britannic war.
But there the tumults of the former year,
Renew; though noised is coming now of Claudius!
Soldiers, thrust forth their tribunes, from the castra:
They smite, with their own rods, those crude centurions.

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Aye, and certain drawn without, they, in salt waves,
Drenched: and behold, wind-driven cold night billows,
Have cast, on the shole strand, their bodies dead!

Ringleaders, from a mound, then Rufus, Calvus,
Volturnius, Cropinus, (men that best could speak,)
Do loudly upbraid, and still rail on their dukes,
Men of soft city life, as used in Rome;
Perfumed and valiant only in the debauch:
Wretches, which, when they wasted have their substance,
Bethink them of new wars. And sith now spoiled
All lands are, they would lead o'er sea poor soldiers;
To fight in Britain, Isle beyond the world.