But the fates In one dread day of slaughter and despair Turned back the centuries and spoke thy doom.
And now the Indian fears the axe no more Once emblem of thy power, now no more The girded Consul curbs the Getan horde, Or in Sarmatian furrows guides the share: (17) Still Parthia boasts her triumphs unavenged: Foul is the public life; and Freedom, fled To furthest Earth beyond the Tigris' stream, And Rhine's broad river, wandering at her will 'Mid Teuton hordes and Scythian, though by sword Sought, yet returns not.

Would that from the day When Romulus, aided by the vulture's flight, Ill-omened, raised within that hateful grove Rome's earliest walls, down to the crimsoned field In dire Thessalia fought, she ne'er had known Italia's peoples! Did the Bruti strike In vain for liberty?
Why laws and rights Sanctioned by all the annals designate With consular titles?
Happier far the Medes And blest Arabia, and the Eastern lands Held by a kindlier fate in despot rule! That nation serves the worst which serves with shame.
No guardian gods watch over us from heaven: Jove (18) is no king; let ages whirl along In blind confusion: from his throne supreme Shall he behold such carnage and restrain His thunderbolts?
On Mimas shall he hurl His fires, on Rhodope and Oeta's woods Unmeriting such chastisement, and leave This life to Cassius' hand?
On Argos fell At grim Thyestes' feast (19) untimely night By him thus hastened; shall Thessalia's land Receive full daylight, wielding kindred swords In fathers' hands and brothers'?
Careless of men Are all the gods.

Yet for this day of doom Such vengeance have we reaped as deities May give to mortals; for these wars shall raise Our parted Caesars to the gods; and Rome Shall deck their effigies with thunderbolts, And stars and rays, and in the very fanes Swear by the shades of men.
With swift advance They seize the space that yet delays the fates Till short the span dividing.

Then they gaze For one short moment where may fall the spear, What hand may deal their death, what monstrous task Soon shall be theirs; and all in arms they see, In reach of stroke, their brothers and their sires With front opposing; yet to yield their ground It pleased them not.

But all the host was dumb With horror; cold upon each loving heart, Awe-struck, the life-blood pressed; and all men held With arms outstretched their javelins for a time, Poised yet unthrown.