Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Italy: Vols. XI–XIII. 1876–79.
Thrasimene
By John Edmund Reade (18001870)T
Calls up the quickened life-blood to the heart:
Visions of fight and old heroic fame
Before the mind’s eye into being start,
Deeds which their inspiration still impart:
Here fell the Romans’ eagle wings outspread
Struck in the tempest by the ethereal dart;
Here valor sunk, his blood like water shed,
Dying upon his foes, the Roman never fled.
Blinding them trampled on the marshy strand,
While the foe rushed from yon hill’s sunlit crown,
Front, flank, and rear on the devoted band;
Vain their wild rally, vainer still their stand:
Yet frantic courage hewed its desperate way
To where yon ridge’s triple heights expand:
Conquered and conqueror’s dust have passed away,
But that once blood-dyed stream records the dreadful day.