Ch. 5: A Centurion of the Thirtieth

Cities and Thrones and Powers
Stand in Time's eye,
Almost as long as flowers,
Which daily die.
But, as new buds put forth
To glad new men,
Out of the spent and unconsidered Earth
The Cities rise again.

This season's Daffodil,
She never hears
What change, what chance, what chill,
Cut down last year's:
But with bold countenance,
And knowledge small,
Esteems her seven days' continuance
To be perpetual.

So Time that is o'er-kind
To all that be,
Ordains us e'en as blind,
As bold as she:
That in our very death,
And burial sure,
Shadow to shadow, well persuaded, saith,
'See how our works endure!'

Dan had come to grief over his Latin, and was kept in; so
Una went alone to Far Wood. Dan's big catapult and the
lead bullets that Hobden had made for him were hidden
in an old hollow beech-stub on the west of the wood.
They had named the place out of the verse in Lays of
Ancient Rome:

From lordly Volaterrae,
Where scowls the far-famed hold
Piled by the hands of giants
For Godlike Kings of old.

They were the 'Godlike Kings', and when old Hobden
piled some comfortable brushwood between the big wooden
knees of Volaterrae, they called him 'Hands of Giants'.

Una slipped through their private gap in the fence, and
sat still awhile, scowling as scowlily and lordlily as she
knew how; for Volaterrae is an important watch-tower
that juts out of Far Wood just as Far Wood juts out of the
hillside. Pook's Hill lay below her and all the turns of the
brook as it wanders out of the Willingford Woods, between
hop-gardens, to old Hobden's cottage at the
Forge. The sou'-west wind (there is always a wind by
Volaterrae) blew from the bare ridge where Cherry Clack
Windmill stands.

Now wind prowling through woods sounds like exciting
things going to happen, and that is why on blowy
days you stand up in Volaterrae and shout bits of the Lays
to suit its noises.

Una took Dan's catapult from its secret place, and
made ready to meet Lars Porsena's army stealing
through the wind-whitened aspens by the brook. A gust
boomed up the valley, and Una chanted sorrowfully:

'Verbenna down to Ostia
Hath wasted all the plain:
Astur hath stormed Janiculum,
And the stout guards are slain.'

But the wind, not charging fair to the wood, started
aside and shook a single oak in Gleason's pasture. Here it
made itself all small and crouched among the grasses,
waving the tips of them as a cat waves the tip of her tail
before she springs.

'Now welcome - welcome, Sextus,' sang Una, loading
the catapult -

'Now welcome to thy home!
Why dost thou stay, and turn away?
Here lies the road to Rome.'

She fired into the face of the lull, to wake up the
cowardly wind, and heard a grunt from behind a thorn in
the pasture.

'Oh, my Winkie!' she said aloud, and that was something
she had picked up from Dan. 'I b'lieve I've tickled
up a Gleason cow.'

'You little painted beast!' a voice cried. 'I'll teach you to
sling your masters!'

She looked down most cautiously, and saw a young
man covered with hoopy bronze armour all glowing
among the late broom. But what Una admired beyond all
was his great bronze helmet with a red horse-tail that
flicked in the wind. She could hear the long hairs rasp on
his shimmery shoulder-plates.

'What does the Faun mean,' he said, half aloud to
himself, 'by telling me that the Painted People have
changed?' He caught sight of Una's yellow head. 'Have
you seen a painted lead-slinger?' he called.

'No-o,' said Una. 'But if you've seen a bullet -'

'Seen?' cried the man. 'It passed within a hair's- breadth
of my ear.'

'Well, that was me. I'm most awfully sorry.'

'Didn't the Faun tell you I was coming?' He smiled.

'Not if you mean Puck. I thought you were a Gleason
cow. I - I didn't know you were a - a - What are you?'

He laughed outright, showing a set of splendid teeth.
His face and eyes were dark, and his eyebrows met above
his big nose in one bushy black bar.

'They call me Parnesius. I have been a Centurion of the
Seventh Cohort of the Thirtieth Legion - the Ulpia Victrix.
Did you sling that bullet?'

'I did. I was using Dan's catapult,' said Una.

'Catapults!' said he. 'I ought to know something about
them. Show me!'

He leaped the rough fence with a rattle of spear, shield,
and armour, and hoisted himself into Volaterrae as
quickly as a shadow.

'A sling on a forked stick. I understand!' he cried, and
pulled at the elastic. 'But what wonderful beast yields
this stretching leather?'

'It's laccy - elastic. You put the bullet into that loop,
and then you pull hard.'

The man pulled, and hit himself square on his thumbnail.

'Each to his own weapon,' he said gravely, handing it
back. 'I am better with the bigger machine, little maiden.
But it's a pretty toy. A wolf would laugh at it. Aren't you
afraid of wolves?'

'There aren't any,' said Una.

'Never believe it! A wolf's like a Winged Hat. He comes
when he isn't expected. Don't they hunt wolves here?'

'We don't hunt,'said Una, remembering what she had
heard from grown-ups. 'We preserve - pheasants. Do
you know them?'

'I ought to,' said the young man, smiling again, and he
imitated the cry of the cock-pheasant so perfectly that a
bird answered out of the wood.

'What a big painted clucking fool is a pheasant!' he
said. 'Just like some Romans.'

'But you're a Roman yourself, aren't you?' said Una.

'Ye-es and no. I'm one of a good few thousands who
have never seen Rome except in a picture. My people
have lived at Vectis for generations. Vectis - that island
West yonder that you can see from so far in clear weather.'

'Do you mean the Isle of Wight? It lifts up just before
rain, and you see it from the Downs.'

'Very likely. Our villa's on the south edge of the Island,
by the Broken Cliffs. Most of it is three hundred years
old, but the cow-stables, where our first ancestor lived,
must be a hundred years older. Oh, quite that, because
the founder of our family had his land given him by
Agricola at the Settlement. It's not a bad little place for its
size. In springtime violets grow down to the very beach.
I've gathered sea-weeds for myself and violets for my
Mother many a time with our old nurse.'

'Was your nurse a - a Romaness too?'

'No, a Numidian. Gods be good to her! A dear, fat,
brown thing with a tongue like a cowbell. She was a free
woman. By the way, are you free, maiden?'

'Oh, quite,' said Una. 'At least, till tea-time; and in
summer our governess doesn't say much if we're late.'

The young man laughed again - a proper
understanding laugh.

'I see,' said he. 'That accounts for your being in the
wood. We hid among the cliffs.'

'Did you have a governess, then?'

'Did we not? A Greek, too. She had a way of clutching
her dress when she hunted us among the gorse-bushes
that made us laugh. Then she'd say she'd get us
whipped. She never did, though, bless her! Aglaia was a
thorough sportswoman, for all her learning.'

'But what lessons did you do - when - when you
were little?'
'Ancient history, the Classics, arithmetic and so on,'he
answered. 'My sister and I were thickheads, but my two
brothers (I'm the middle one) liked those things, and, of
course, Mother was clever enough for any six. She was
nearly as tall as I am, and she looked like the new statue
on the Western Road - the Demeter of the Baskets, you
know. And funny! Roma Dea! How Mother could make
us laugh!'

'What at?'

'Little jokes and sayings that every family has. Don't
you know?'

'I know we have, but I didn't know other people had
them too,' said Una. 'Tell me about all your family, please.'

'Good families are very much alike. Mother would sit
spinning of evenings while Aglaia read in her corner, and
Father did accounts, and we four romped about the
passages. When our noise grew too loud the Pater would
say, "Less tumult! Less tumult! Have you never heard of
a Father's right over his children? He can slay them, my
loves - slay them dead, and the Gods highly approve of
the action!" Then Mother would prim up her dear mouth
over the wheel and answer: "H'm! I'm afraid there can't
be much of the Roman Father about you!" Then the Pater
would roll up his accounts, and say, "I'll show you!" and
then - then, he'd be worse than any of us!'

'Fathers can - if they like,' said Una, her eyes dancing.

'Didn't I say all good families are very much the same?'

'What did you do in summer?' said Una. 'Play about, like us?'

'Yes, and we visited our friends. There are no wolves in
Vectis. We had many friends, and as many ponies as we wished.'

'It must have been lovely,' said Una. 'I hope it lasted for ever.'

'Not quite, little maid. When I was about sixteen or
seventeen, the Father felt gouty, and we all went to the Waters.'

'What waters?'

'At Aquae Sulis. Every one goes there. You ought to
get your Father to take you some day.'

'But where? I don't know,' said Una.

The young man looked astonished for a moment.
'Aquae Sulis,' he repeated. 'The best baths in Britain. just
as good, I'm told, as Rome. All the old gluttons sit in hot
water, and talk scandal and politics. And the Generals
come through the streets with their guards behind them;
and the magistrates come in their chairs with their stiff
guards behind them; and you meet fortune-tellers, and
goldsmiths, and merchants, and philosophers, and
feather-sellers, and ultra-Roman Britons, and ultra-
British Romans, and tame tribesmen pretending to be
civilised, and Jew lecturers, and - oh, everybody interesting.
We young people, of course, took no interest in
politics. We had not the gout. There were many of our
age like us. We did not find life sad.

'But while we were enjoying ourselves without thinking,
my sister met the son of a magistrate in the West -
and a year afterwards she was married to him. My young
brother, who was always interested in plants and roots,
met the First Doctor of a Legion from the City of the
Legions, and he decided that he would be an Army
doctor. I do not think it is a profession for a well-born
man, but then - I'm not my brother. He went to Rome to
study medicine, and now he's First Doctor of a Legion in
Egypt - at Antinoe, I think, but I have not heard from him
for some time.

'My eldest brother came across a Greek philosopher,
and told my Father that he intended to settle down on the
estate as a farmer and a philosopher. You see,' - the
young man's eyes twinkled - 'his philosopher was a
long-haired one!'

'I thought philosophers were bald,' said Una.

'Not all. She was very pretty. I don't blame him.
Nothing could have suited me better than my eldest
brother's doing this, for I was only too keen to join the
Army. I had always feared I should have to stay at home
and look after the estate while my brother took this.'

He rapped on his great glistening shield that never
seemed to be in his way.

'So we were well contented - we young people - and
we rode back to Clausentum along the Wood Road very
quietly. But when we reached home, Aglaia, our governess,
saw what had come to us. I remember her at the
door, the torch over her head, watching us climb the
cliff-path from the boat. "Aie! Aie!" she said. "Children
you went away. Men and a woman you return!" Then
she kissed Mother, and Mother wept. Thus our visit to
the Waters settled our fates for each of us, maiden.'
He rose to his feet and listened, leaning on the shield-rim.

'I think that's Dan - my brother,' said Una.

'Yes; and the Faun is with him,'he replied, as Dan with
Puck stumbled through the copse.

'We should have come sooner,' Puck called, 'but
the beauties of your native tongue, O Parnesius, have
enthralled this young citizen.'

Parnesius looked bewildered, even when
Una explained.

'Dan said the plural of "dominus" was "dominoes",
and when Miss Blake said it wasn't he said he supposed it
was "backgammon", and so he had to write it out twice -
for cheek, you know.'
Dan had climbed into Volaterrae, hot and panting.

'I've run nearly all the way,'he gasped, 'and then Puck
met me. How do you do, sir?'

'I am in good health,' Parnesius answered. 'See! I have
tried to bend the bow of Ulysses, but -' He held up his thumb.

'I'm sorry. You must have pulled off too soon,' said
Dan. 'But Puck said you were telling Una a story.'

'Continue, O Parnesius,' said Puck, who had perched
himself on a dead branch above them. 'I will be chorus.
Has he puzzled you much, Una?'
'Not a bit, except - I didn't know where Ak- Ak
something was,' she answered.

'Oh, Aquae Sulis. That's Bath, where the buns come
from. Let the hero tell his own tale.'

Parnesius pretended to thrust his spear at Puck's legs,
but Puck reached down, caught at the horse-tail plume,
and pulled off the tall helmet.

'Thanks, jester,' said Parnesius, shaking his curly dark
head. 'That is cooler. Now hang it up for me .

'I was telling your sister how I joined the Army,' he
said to Dan.

'Did you have to pass an Exam?' Dan asked eagerly.

'No. I went to my Father, and said I should like to enter
the Dacian Horse (I had seen some at Aquae Sulis); but he
said I had better begin service in a regular Legion from
Rome. Now, like many of our youngsters, I was not too
fond of anything Roman. The Roman-born officers and
magistrates looked down on us British-born as though
we were barbarians. I told my Father so.

"'I know they do," he said; "but remember, after all,
we are the people of the Old Stock, and our duty is to
the Empire."

"'To which Empire?" I asked. "We split the Eagle
before I was born."

"'What thieves' talk is that?" said my Father. He hated slang.

"'Well, sir," I said, "we've one Emperor in Rome, and I
don't know how many Emperors the outlying Provinces
have set up from time to time. Which am I to follow?"

"'Gratian," said he. "At least he's a sportsman."

"'He's all that," I said. "Hasn't he turned himself into a
raw-beef-eating Scythian?"

"'Where did you hear of it?" said the Pater.

"'At Aquae Sulis," I said. It was perfectly true. This
precious Emperor Gratian of ours had a bodyguard of
fur-cloaked Scythians, and he was so crazy about them
that he dressed like them. In Rome of all places in the
world! It was as bad as if my own Father had painted
himself blue!

"'No matter for the clothes," said the Pater. "They are
only the fringe of the trouble. It began before your time or
mine. Rome has forsaken her Gods, and must be
punished. The great war with the Painted People broke
out in the very year the temples of our Gods were
destroyed. We beat the Painted People in the very year
our temples were rebuilt. Go back further still." He
went back to the time of Diocletian; and to listen to him
you would have thought Eternal Rome herself was on
the edge of destruction, just because a few people had
become a little large-minded.

'I knew nothing about it. Aglaia never taught us the
history of our own country. She was so full of her ancient Greeks.

"'There is no hope for Rome," said the Pater, at last.
"She has forsaken her Gods, but if the Gods forgive us
here, we may save Britain. To do that, we must keep the
Painted People back. Therefore, I tell you, Parnesius, as a
Father, that if your heart is set on service, your place is
among men on the Wall - and not with women among
the cities."'

'What Wall?' asked Dan and Una at once.

'Father meant the one we call Hadrian's Wall. I'll tell
you about it later. It was built long ago, across North
Britain, to keep out the Painted People - Picts, you call
them. Father had fought in the great Pict War that lasted
more than twenty years, and he knew what fighting
meant. Theodosius, one of our great Generals, had
chased the little beasts back far into the North before I
was born. Down at Vectis, of course, we never troubled
our heads about them. But when my Father spoke as he
did, I kissed his hand, and waited for orders. We British-
born Romans know what is due to our parents.'

'If I kissed my Father's hand, he'd laugh,' said Dan.

'Customs change; but if you do not obey your Father,
the Gods remember it. You may be quite sure of that.

'After our talk, seeing I was in earnest, the Pater sent
me over to Clausentum to learn my foot-drill in a barrack
full of foreign Auxiliaries - as unwashed and unshaved a
mob of mixed barbarians as ever scrubbed a breastplate.
It was your stick in their stomachs and your shield in their
faces to push them into any sort of formation. When I had
learned my work the Instructor gave me a handful - and
they were a handful! - of Gauls and Iberians to polish up
till they were sent to their stations up-country. I did my
best, and one night a villa in the suburbs caught fire, and I
had my handful out and at work before any of the other
troops. I noticed a quiet-looking man on the lawn, leaning
on a stick. He watched us passing buckets from the
pond, and at last he said to me: "Who are you?"

"'A probationer, waiting for a command," I answered.
I didn't know who he was from Deucalion!

"'Born in Britain?" he said.

"'Yes, if you were born in Spain," I said, for he
neighed his words like an Iberian mule.

"'And what might you call yourself when you are at
home?" he said, laughing.

"'That depends," I answered; "sometimes one thing
and sometimes another. But now I'm busy."

'He said no more till we had saved the family Gods
(they were respectable householders), and then he
grunted across the laurels: "Listen, young sometimes-
one-thing-and-sometimes-another. In future call yourself
Centurion of the Seventh Cohort of the Thirtieth, the
Ulpia Victrix. That will help me to remember you. Your
Father and a few other people call me Maximus."

'He tossed me the polished stick he was leaning on,
and went away. You might have knocked me down with it!'
'Who was he?' said Dan.

'Maximus himself, our great General! The General of
Britain who had been Theodosius's right hand in the Pict
War! Not only had he given me my Centurion's stick
direct, but three steps in a good Legion as well! A new
man generally begins in the Tenth Cohort of his Legion,
and works up.'

'And were you pleased?' said Una.

'Very. I thought Maximus had chosen me for my good
looks and fine style in marching, but, when I went home,
the Pater told me he had served under Maximus in the
great Pict War, and had asked him to befriend me.'

'A child you were!' said Puck, from above.

'I was,' said Parnesius. 'Don't begrudge it me, Faun.
Afterwards - the Gods know I put aside the games!' And
Puck nodded, brown chin on brown hand, his big eyes still.

'The night before I left we sacrificed to our ancestors -
the usual little Home Sacrifice - but I never prayed so
earnestly to all the Good Shades, and then I went with

my Father by boat to Regnum, and across the chalk
eastwards to Anderida yonder.'

'Regnum? Anderida?' The children turned their faces
to Puck.

'Regnum's Chichester,' he said, pointing towards
Cherry Clack, 'and'- he threw his arm South behind him
-'Anderida's Pevensey.'

'Pevensey again!' said Dan. 'Where Weland landed?'

'Weland and a few others,' said Puck. 'Pevensey isn't
young - even compared to me!'

'The headquarters of the Thirtieth lay at Anderida in
summer, but my own Cohort, the Seventh, was on the
Wall up North. Maximus was inspecting Auxiliaries - the
Abulci, I think - at Anderida, and we stayed with him, for
he and my Father were very old friends. I was only there
ten days when I was ordered to go up with thirty men to
my Cohort.' He laughed merrily. 'A man never forgets
his first march. I was happier than any Emperor when I
led my handful through the North Gate of the Camp, and
we saluted the guard and the Altar of Victory there.'

'How? How?' said Dan and Una.

Parnesius smiled, and stood up, flashing in his armour.

'So!' said he; and he moved slowly through the beautiful
movements of the Roman Salute, that ends with a
hollow clang of the shield coming into its place between
the shoulders.

'Hai!' said Puck. 'That sets one thinking!'

'We went out fully armed,' said Parnesius, sitting
down; 'but as soon as the road entered the Great Forest,
my men expected the pack-horses to hang their shields
on. "No!" I said; you can dress like women in Anderida,
but while you're with me you will carry your own
weapons and armour."

"'But it's hot," said one of them, "and we haven't a
doctor. Suppose we get sunstroke, or a fever?"

"'Then die," I said, "and a good riddance to Rome! Up
shield - up spears, and tighten your foot-wear!"

"'Don't think yourself Emperor of Britain already," a
fellow shouted. I knocked him over with the butt of my
spear, and explained to these Roman-born Romans that,
if there were any further trouble, we should go on with
one man short. And, by the Light of the Sun, I meant it
too! My raw Gauls at Clausentum had never treated me so.

'Then, quietly as a cloud, Maximus rode out of the
fern (my Father behind him), and reined up across the
road. He wore the Purple, as though he were already
Emperor; his leggings were of white buckskin laced
with gold.

'My men dropped like - like partridges.

'He said nothing for some time, only looked, with his
eyes puckered. Then he crooked his forefinger, and my
men walked - crawled, I mean - to one side.

"'Stand in the sun, children," he said, and they
formed up on the hard road.

"'What would you have done," he said to me, "if I had
not been here?"

"'I should have killed that man," I answered.

"'Kill him now," he said. "He will not move a limb."

"'No," I said. "You've taken my men out of my
command. I should only be your butcher if I killed him
now." Do you see what I meant?' Parnesius turned to Dan.
'Yes,'said Dan. 'It wouldn't have been fair, somehow.'

'That was what I thought,' said Parnesius. 'But
Maximus frowned. "You'll never be an Emperor," he
said. "Not even a General will you be."

'I was silent, but my Father seemed pleased.
"'I came here to see the last of you," he said.

"'You have seen it," said Maximus. "I shall never need
your son any more. He will live and he will die an officer
of a Legion - and he might have been Prefect of one of my
Provinces. Now eat and drink with us," he said. "Your
men will wait till you have finished."

'My miserable thirty stood like wine-skins glistening in
the hot sun, and Maximus led us to where his people had
set a meal. Himself he mixed the wine.

"'A year from now," he said, "you will remember that
you have sat with the Emperor of Britain - and Gaul."

"'Yes," said the Pater, "you can drive two mules -
Gaul and Britain."

"'Five years hence you will remember that you have
drunk" - he passed me the cup and there was blue borage
in it - "with the Emperor of Rome!"

"'No; you can't drive three mules. They will tear YOU
in pieces," said my Father.

"'And you on the Wall, among the heather, will weep
because your notion of justice was more to you than the
favour of the Emperor of Rome."

'I sat quite still. One does not answer a General who
wears the Purple.

"'I am not angry with you," he went on; "I owe too
much to your Father -"

"'You owe me nothing but advice that you never
took," said the Pater.

"'- to be unjust to any of your family. Indeed, I say you
may make a good Tribune, but, so far as I am concerned,
on the Wall you will live, and on the Wall you will die,"
said Maximus.

"'Very like," said my Father. "But we shall have the
Picts and their friends breaking through before long.
You cannot move all troops out of Britain to make you
Emperor, and expect the North to sit quiet."
"'I follow my destiny," said Maximus.

"'Follow it, then," said my Father, pulling up a fern
root; "and die as Theodosius died."

"'Ah!" said Maximus. "My old General was killed
because he served the Empire too well. I may be killed,
but not for that reason," and he smiled a little pale grey
smile that made my blood run cold.

"'Then I had better follow my destiny," I said, "and
take my men to the Wall."

'He looked at me a long time, and bowed his head
slanting like a Spaniard. "Follow it, boy," he said. That
was all. I was only too glad to get away, though I had
many messages for home. I found my men standing as
they had been put - they had not even shifted their feet in
the dust, and off I marched, still feeling that terrific smile
like an east wind up my back. I never halted them till
sunset, and' - he turned about and looked at Pook's Hill
below him - 'then I halted yonder.' He pointed to the
broken, bracken-covered shoulder of the Forge Hill
behind old Hobden's cottage.

'There? Why, that's only the old Forge - where they
made iron once,' said Dan.

'Very good stuff it was too,' said Parnesius calmly. 'We
mended three shoulder-straps here and had a spear-head
riveted. The Forge was rented from the Government by a
one-eyed smith from Carthage. I remember we called
him Cyclops. He sold me a beaver-skin rug for my sister's room.'

'But it couldn't have been here,' Dan insisted.

'But it was! From the Altar of Victory at Anderida to the
First Forge in the Forest here is twelve miles seven
hundred paces. It is all in the Road Book. A man doesn't
forget his first march. I think I could tell you every station
between this and -! He leaned forward, but his eye was
caught by the setting sun.

It had come down to the top of Cherry Clack Hill, and
the light poured in between the tree trunks so that you
could see red and gold and black deep into the heart of
Far Wood; and Parnesius in his armour shone as though
he had been afire.

'Wait!' he said, lifting a hand, and the sunlight jinked
on his glass bracelet. 'Wait! I pray to Mithras!'

He rose and stretched his arms westward, with deep,
splendid-sounding words.
Then Puck began to sing too, in a voice like bells
tolling, and as he sang he slipped from Volaterrae to the
ground, and beckoned the children to follow. They
obeyed; it seemed as though the voices were pushing
them along; and through the goldy-brown light on the
beech leaves they walked, while Puck between them
chanted something like this:

'Cur mundus militat sub vana gloria
Cujus prosperitas est transitoria?
Tam cito labitur ejus potentia
Quam vasa figuli quae sunt fragilia.'

They found themselves at the little locked gates of the wood.

'Quo Caesar abiit celsus imperio?
Vel Dives splendidus totus in prandio?
Dic ubi Tullius -'

Still singing, he took Dan's hand and wheeled him
round to face Una as she came out of the gate. It shut
behind her, at the same time as Puck threw the memory-
magicking Oak, Ash and Thorn leaves over their heads.

'Well, you are jolly late,' said Una. 'Couldn't you get
away before?'

'I did,' said Dan. 'I got away in lots of time, but - but I
didn't know it was so late. Where've you been?'

'In Volaterrae - waiting for you.'

'Sorry,' said Dan. 'It was all that beastly Latin.'

A British-Roman Song
(A.D. 406)

My father's father saw it not,
And I, belike, shall never come
To look on that so-holy spot -
The very Rome -

Crowned by all Time, all Art, all Might,
The equal work of Gods and Man,
City beneath whose oldest height -
The Race began!

Soon to send forth again a brood,
Unshakeable, we pray, that clings
To Rome's thrice-hammered hardihood -
In arduous things.
Strong heart with triple armour bound,
Beat strongly, for Thy life-blood runs,
Age after Age, the Empire round -
In us Thy Sons,
Who, distant from the Seven Hills,
Loving and serving much, require
Thee - Thee to guard 'gainst home-born ills
The Imperial Fire!