I am never in doubt of her goodness,
      I am always afraid of her mood,
    I am never quite sure of her temper,
      For wilfulness runs in her blood. 
    She is sweet with the sweetness of springtime—­
      A tear and a smile in an hour—­
    Yet I ask not release from her slightest caprice,
      My love with the face of a flower.

    My love with the grace of the lily
      That sways on its slender fair stem,
    My love with the bloom of the rosebud,
      White pearl in my life’s diadem! 
    You may call her coquette if it please you,
      Enchanting, if shy or if bold,
    Is my darling, my winsome wee lassie,
      Whose birthdays are three, when all told.

    Horatius.[1]

    A Lay Made About the Year of the City CCCLX.

    By T.B.  MACAULAY.

    I.

    Lars Porsena of Clusium
      By the Nine Gods he swore
    That the great house of Tarquin
      Should suffer wrong no more. 
    By the Nine Gods he swore it,
      And named a trysting-day,
    And bade his messengers ride forth,
    East and west, and south and north,
      To summon his array.

    II.

    East and west, and south and north,
      The messengers ride fast,
    And tower and town and cottage
      Have heard the trumpet’s blast. 
    Shame on the false Etruscan
      Who lingers in his home,
    When Porsena of Clusium
      Is on the march for Rome!

    III.

    The horsemen and the footmen
      Are pouring in amain,
    From many a stately market-place,
      From many a fruitful plain;
    From many a lonely hamlet,
      Which, hid by beech and pine,
    Like an eagle’s nest, hangs on the crest
      Of purple Apennine;

    IV.

    From lordly Volaterrae,
      Where scowls the far-famed hold
    Piled by the hands of giants
      For godlike kings of old;
    From sea-girt Populonia,
      Whose sentinels descry
    Sardinia’s snowy mountain-tops
      Fringing the southern sky;

    V.

    From the proud mart of Pisae,
      Queen of the western waves,
    Where ride Massilia’s triremes
      Heavy with fair-haired slaves;
    From where sweet Clanis wanders
      Through corn and vines and flowers;
    From where Cortona lifts to heaven
      Her diadem of towers.

    VI.

    Tall are the oaks whose acorns
      Drop in dark Auser’s rill;
    Fat are the stags that champ the boughs
      Of the Ciminian hill;
    Beyond all streams Clitumnus
      Is to the herdsman dear;
    Best of all pools the fowler loves
      The great Volsinian mere.

    VII.