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Whom none might harm, so willed his sire,
With force of iron or of fire,
Awakes his people's slumbering zeal
Long time unused to war's appeal,
And from the scabbard bares the steel.
With him Fescennia's armed train,
The dwellers in Falerii's plain,
Who hold Soracte's lofty hill
Or fair Flavinia's cornland till,
Capena's woods their dwelling make
Or haunt Ciminius' mount and lake.
With measured pace they march along,
And make their monarch's deeds their song;
Like snow-white swans in liquid air,
When homeward from their food they fare,
And far and wide melodious notes
Come rippling from their slender throats,
While the broad stream and Asia's fen
Reverberate to the sound again.
Sure none had thought that countless crowd
A mail-clad company;
It rather seemed a dusky cloud
Of migrant fowl, that, hoarse and loud,
Press landward from the sea.

Lo! Clausus there, the Sabines' boast,
Leads a great host, himself a host:
From whom the Claudii till the land
Since Rome with Sabines joined her hand.
With him the Amiternians came
And Cures' sons of ancient name.
The squadron that Eretum guards
And green Mutusca's olive-yards,
Those whom Nomentum's city yields,
Who till Velinus' Rosean fields,
Who Tetrica's rude summit climb
Or on Severus sit sublime,