University of Virginia Library

Loud bloweth the tramontana
O'er the uplands of Veii:
Shrill through the grasses
It whistles blithely,
Tossing the thistle-foam
Far o'er the pastures
Where the goat-skinn'd shepherd
Tendeth his sheep,
And the high hawk, swooping,
Drifteth his shadow
From slope to slope.

Here, when Rome lay
Crouch'd in her hollows
Where the Tiber lapped
The Hill of Saturn,
Veii the beautiful gleamed in the sunlight.
Here, in the springs
That bloomed as sweetly
Two thousand years since,
As now when the blackbird
Calleth loudly
Where the Cremera surgeth
Through her hollow glen,
And rainbows are woven
Where the torrents vanish
Over mossed ledges,
White sheets of water
With emerald hearts:
Here, the Etrurian
Banner waved proudly,
Lordly and glorious,
Sovereign ever
From sea to sea.
Here the proud hosts
Laughed when the battle-cry
Rang through the highways,
And when from the towers
Of Veii the mighty
The herald-clarions
Sent a wild blast
On the wind of the morning,
A tumult of summons
To the flashing swords,
And the merciless rain
Of spears gleaming white
As hail on the hill-sides.
Here the fair city was decked as a maiden
Led forth as a bride,
With sunlit towers
And banners yellow
With virgin gold,
And shrines of the holy ones
Aflame in the sun,
As the waters of ocean
When the blossom of morning
Swiftly unfolds in a myriad wavelets
Leaping and laughing in shining splendour.

Here now the dust bloweth
Where the Gods stood proudly,
Staring undaunted
Through the shadows of Tiber:
Here now the grasses
Wave, where the banners
Of ancient Etruria
Tossed i' the sun:
And where the clarions
Of the heralds rang,
The jay screameth
From her swaying bough.
Slowly the shepherd,
Like the moving shadow
Cast by the flock that followeth after,
Wandereth, heedless,
O'er the vast spaces:
Nor dreameth ever
Of what lies buried
Beneath the waste,
Though oft he wonders
When his foot striketh
A rusty spear-head;
Or when, from the mould,
A stone hand cometh,
As though the dead
Were stirring again
Where now the windblown foam of the thistles
Whitens the pastures of what was Veii.