Golden Histories, etc :: :: University of Virginia Library

But Fabius, hearing all the cry of pain
That echoed down the field, and far away,
Seeing the wandering, wavering, flying fight,
Exclaimed, “Ah, me! not sooner than I feared,
“Mischance hath caught the rash ones. Equalled now
“With Fabius in command, Minucius knows
“Too late Sidonian Hannibal his lord
“In valour as in fortune. But rebuke
“Befits not men whom nobler work awaits.
“On, Standards, on!—beyond the ramparts on!
“To snatch the new-fledged triumph from the foe,
“And win confession of a perilous fault
“From our dear countrymen. On, Standards, on!”
So while they stood, these poor defeated men,
Some looking on the fight, some on the slain,
Came Fabius with his band, and curbing still
His happier Following that, with fiery heart,
Mixed in the strife, and gathering back from flight—
One here, one there—the broken soldiery,
He, with the unconquered blent the conquered half,
Till, one exulting, one victorious whole,
It fronted the Phœnician. That great Chief,
Seeing the game of kings thus lost and won,

Bade sound retreat, and, as the tuneful brass
Rang down the Vale of Death, cried out aloud,
“I am the conqueror of Minucius, I!
“But Fabius is the man who conquered me.”