A Lay Sung at the Feast (19)

    Then tenfold round the body The roar of battle rose, Like the roar of a burning forest, When a strong north wind blows, Now backward, and now forward, Rocked furiously the fray, Till none could see Valerius, And none wist where he lay. For shivered arms and ensigns Were heaped there in a mound, And corpses stiff, and dying men That writhed and gnawed the ground； And wounded horses kicking, And snorting purple foam： Right well did such a couch befit A Consular of Rome.