Classic Poem

Every foe before us flies
With a terror in his eyes!
We are Hannibal's fierce warriors for all battle-carnage frantic,
And amid our brazen shields,
In the blood of many fields,
He, our leader, our great Captain, deigns to praise our deeds gigantic!

On the slopes of Eryx far
We did mutilate and mar
The mailed enemies who scorned us with mad folly and derision!
How Zeboub, the God of Rot,
Who his chosen ne'er forgot,
Hurled his lightning on their bodies as they vanished like a vision!

Yea! Zeboub doth love us well!
In his name we smite and fell
Without grace and without mercy all the vanquished of each city!
We are deaf to captive's cries,
We are stone to woman's sighs,
For great Melcarth guides us onward and hath never taught us pity!

With the fat a foe-corpse yields
We illuminate our shields,
Made of brass and hides of elephants, whose strength defies all arrows;
And we feast with joys immense
In our white and purple tents,
In the glory of our manhood, in the splendor of our marrows!

When we valorously march
Over plain and under arch,
We have with us dogs and leopards, and lithe lynxes, pets ferocious,
And when blood is thick and red,
To the carrion they are led,
And the wounded foeman shiver in their massive jaws atrocious!

We have taken scores of towns,
On the hills and on the downs,
Ay! Entella, Cirta, Tingis, and walled Henna towered and flowerful!
We have made a dreaded camp
Under Cyrnos bleak and damp,
And have crushed the Roman legions under chariots swift and powerful!

Great Xantippus, once our Chief,
Who in battle knew no grief,
Led us forward when at Adis all our enemies assembled;
Ask the devasting crows,
That devoured the fallen rows,
How they found annihilation while their coward Senate trembled!

We parade in brazen bands,
We have jewels on our hands,
Our campaigns are ever counted by the rings upon our fingers;
And whenever we appear,
The stupendous God of Fear
On the forehead of the Romans in a mist of scarlet lingers!

We have bridles of bent reeds
To direct our bounding steeds;
They are burdened by the bodies of the Roman girls we capture,
Ay! the blushing Roman girls,
With a fragrance in their curls,
Whom we kiss and fondle nightly, warm with rosy wine and rapture!

We perpetually burn
For a kiss's soft return,
And when noble War has ended to the Satheb we can wander,
Where the city harlots stride
In their jewels and their pride,
Where we bend upon their bosoms and the Roman silver squander!

Oh great Gurzil, God of War,
Mighty God without a scar!
Drive the enemies of Carthage now before thee like dumb cattle,
And with fury in thine eyes,
Deign impeccable to rise,
And protect our valiant foreheads in the hot hells of the battle!