All the hope of Rome, The flower of Latium, stained with blood the field Where once the peaceful tribes their votes declared.
Famine and Sword, the raging sky and sea, And Earth upheaved, have laid such numbers low: But ne'er one man's revenge.

Between the slain And living victims there was space no more, Death thus let slip, to deal the fatal blow.
Hardly when struck they fell; the severed head Scarce toppled from the shoulders; but the slain Blent in a weighty pile of massacre Pressed out the life and helped the murderer's arm.
Secure from stain upon his lofty throne, Unshuddering sat the author of the whole, Nor feared that at his word such thousands fell.
At length the Tuscan flood received the dead The first upon his waves; the last on those That lay beneath them; vessels in their course Were stayed, and while the lower current flowed Still to the sea, the upper stood on high Dammed back by carnage.

Through the streets meanwhile In headlong torrents ran a tide of blood, Which furrowing its path through town and field Forced the slow river on.

But now his banks No longer held him, and the dead were thrown Back on the fields above.

With labour huge At length he struggled to his goal and stretched In crimson streak across the Tuscan Sea.
"For deeds like these, shall Sulla now be styled 'Darling of Fortune', 'Saviour of the State'?
For these, a tomb in middle field of Mars Record his fame?
Like horrors now return For us to suffer; and the civil war Thus shall be waged again and thus shall end.
Yet worse disasters may our fears suggest, For now with greater carnage of mankind The rival hosts in weightier battle meet.
To exiled Marius, successful strife Was Rome regained; triumphant Sulla knew No greater joy than on his hated foes To wreak his vengeance with unsparing sword.
But these more powerful rivals Fortune calls To worse ambitions; nor would either chief For such reward as Sulla's wage the war." Thus, mindful of his youth, the aged man Wept for the past, but feared the coming days.
Such terrors found in haughty Brutus' breast No home.