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

Bright Dawn, on throne of ivory and of gold,
Is mounting now, beloved of men and gods,
In purple weed; and kings under yond walls,
Harnessed, helm-clad, in battle-carts forth-ride.

Then the high sire, as Belisama inspired;
That none them count disparaged, this great day,
Day wherein they should fight in Camulus' view,
(One people of Samoth, gainst intruded strangers,)
Unto each assigns, by druids' sacred lot,
Which they, before the kings, had last night cast,
His place. Save only as it, by ancient right,
(Keepers of West and East March of this Isle,)
Pertains; Silures and Kent men shall hold
The wings; and midmost, Catuvelaunian nation.

But hark; whilst Britons, to the camp of legions,
Gaze forth, speak Roman clarions a stern note.
And, lo, of bloody hew, scarlet, in grain,
On Cæsar's tent, is splayed the imperial cloak;
Token, that should, this day, be battle joined!

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Straight, issue cohorts, from all ports, at once:
And digged part down, part razed, of the paled work;
Lo, led now harnessed forth, huge nozzled elephants!
That seem like rocking ships, mongst trains of soldiers;
Whose painted castles full of light-armed archers,
Of strange aspect. Behold then tower-machines,
Nodding, on immane wheels, forged hardly forth;
With travial and with pain of men and elephants.

Array them, in long battles, Cæsar's legions;
And Roman knights prick forth, with glittering spears.
Lo, on white Gaulish steed, where bald-pate Claudius,
Rides; to whom now obeys the world of Rome!
Aulus rides, with him; legates then of legions,
His marshals of the camp and of the horse;
And noble Asiaticus Valerius,
Who of consular state: and friend is named of Claudius.
(Is greatest this, of all that live in Rome,
In riches and dispense!) From Gaul to Britain,
He, whom the Senate sends, to wait on Claudius,
Is lately o'erpassed, in his own three-banked ship.

From Cæsar, now, his legate, Aulus, parts;
And where he comes, Fight, valiantly, he exhorts,
In the imperator's view; in whom, remit,

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Lies, or else punish, fault of their revolt.
Record their antique virtue and achieve,
To-day such victory, as may end the war.

And merry, in his fond mood, carps gat-toothed Claudius,
Mongst Roman captains, nodding on them fast,
His totty brow; and shows, crowned with clay dykes,
The Britons' dune, set on an hill's high breast,
With the imperial finger; and cries oft,
Ha! high-walled Ilium! and Colne-stream calls he,
Scamander! and yond clustered blue caterfs,
Teucrians; and Britons' scythe-carts, Phrygian chariots;
Whose king the Priamid blue Caratacus;
With whom Sarpedon, and some queen or goddess,
Come from a land of women-warriors.
The Oiléid, Geta is; great Ajax Telamon,
Vespasian Flavius; busy-headed Aulus,
Odysseus; Diomed-like, is this young Titus!

To heaven's high stars, quoth he, quaint-witted Greeks
Have overmuch extolled their little deeds,
As children reck much of their saddle-reeds,
Whose sanded towers them seem a mighty world.

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Till now, have Romans sooner wanted words,
(And they shall soon want worlds!) to set theirs forth.
Who lives, he cries, were able to record
Ten-years' war-glory of Quirîtes Romans.
Were leisure, he would so great argument,
Himself entreat. Should certain letters help,
Which he, a private man, found, in his youth,
And since set forth; whereby he could endite
All barbare sounds, even these war-shouts of Britons!

Ache his great tribunes' ears, of Claudius' speech.
Them seems, like culver, becking on a bough,
Cæsar's white poll; and like a flickering leaf,
His maffling tongue. Is fain, this morn, fond Claudius,
To look on his proud war-wont marshalled legions.
Yet most he, in his secret, doth admire;
That Claudius is that army's imperator!

This portent of a man, in covert breast,
All mock, faint germ of great warfaring Drusus;
Who subdued barbare nations, to far Elbe.
Them thinks, that was this rightly naméd Claudius;
So his tongue halts. Impatient, wox his captains,
Before whom lies a day of strenuous fight.

Young Titus answers, in his mirthful vein;

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(Who nigh to Cæsar rides, mongst Roman knights;)
Did certes not men fight, before high Ilion!
But bladders, wine-sacs, scudding in much wind;
Unto whom each bodkin's prick was certain death.
He accounts them all not worth one Roman legion!

Many a poor hunter, lion, in field or forest
Hath hardily pierced, whereof heard little vaunt,
Being wight of mean regard and barbarous: but
Had such one not Achilles haply slain?
Whom could not Hector kill. Were not, less strong,
The better of them both, than horse? or swift
Than is wild ass? What three men, leagued their force
Had not that son o'erthrown of a sea-goddess?
What Roman bestiary had not tossed his noose,
On that proud neck, for all his furious boast;
And him repressed, aye, and slain, like salvage beast?

Hart-swift Achilles, what though he were strong
As is a Titan, stripe yet of slung whin-stone,
Or quarrel, shot from steel-stringed Roman engine,
Methinks, had slackt his divine knees anon!
Nor Greeks used any certain discipline,
Before Troy town; more than, now, Gauls or Almains;

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Men without all invention, in the wars.
Thus jests young Titus; who, with ruddy face,
Comely, straight-limbed, pricks forth, then, confident,
To the left horn, o'ergainst blue Britons' scythe-carts.

But Cæsar seeing lower, hastes answer Flavius,
His father; Yet bears Titus certain scroll,
Aye, in his bosom, of that blind Homerus;
Wherein he studies wars of old Troy-town.
Is this the fountain of his noble nature!
And sings he, crowned at banquets, with fresh flowers,
Those verses of sweet sound; even in men's ears,
That skill but small of letters, of vain Greeks;
Such as himself, who homely Roman-born.

Bestiarius: a fighter with beasts, in the public games.