In Darkest Hour, Winston Churchill recites the following verses from "Horatius" (one of the Lays of Ancient Rome) to his fellow passengers in the London Underground: “Then out spake brave Horatius,

The plan occurred to me in the jungle at the foot of the Neilgherry hills; and most of the verses were made during a dreary sojourn at Ootacamund and a disagreeable voyage in the Bay of Bengal. [1] As a teenager, Winston Churchill won a Harrow School award for memorising and declaiming all 1,200 lines [i] of Macaulay's text. [10] In the films Into the Storm (2009) [11] and Darkest Hour (2017), he is depicted reciting Horatius' speech while Prime Minister during the Second World War. [12] The Lays sold well in America and had a profound impact on the generation that would fight the Civil War. On June 27, 1864, Ohio Colonel Daniel McCook Jr. prepared his brigade to advance toward Confederate positions at Kennesaw Mountain, Georgia by reciting the phrase from "Horatius" beginning "For how can man die better / Than facing fearful odds..." More than thirty years later, Lieutenant J. T. Holmes wrote "I recalled McCook's death song as he strode through the brigade and the actual work before us, of which we had been advised, began to dawn clearly on all minds. It was doubtless, a spontaneous quotation, but very appropriate to inspire the patriotic feeling and, if we had been Roman soldiery, a trust in the care of the gods. It was a heathen refrain, but impregnated with love of country and kith and kin and duty owed to them all." [8]Langworth, Richard M. (2009). "End of Glory: "Into the Storm" ". winstonchurchill.org. The International Churchill Society . Retrieved 16 July 2021.

Lays of Ancient Rome is an 1842 collection of narrative poems, or lays, by Thomas Babington Macaulay. Four of these recount heroic episodes from early Roman history with strong dramatic and tragic themes, giving the collection its name. Macaulay also included two poems inspired by recent history: Ivry (1824) and The Armada (1832). The Lays of Ancient Rome comprise four narrative poems comprised by Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay: recalling popular episodes from Roman historical-legends that were strongly moral in tone: exemplifying Roman virtue against Latine perfidy.

Richard Corliss (19 April 2013). "Tom Cruise in Oblivion: Drones and Clones on Planet Earth". Time . Retrieved 31 August 2013. Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay PC was an English poet, historian and Whig politician. He wrote extensively as an essayist and reviewer, and on British history. He also held political office as Secretary at War between 1839 and 1841 and Paymaster-General between 1846 and 1848. These poems of courage and patriotism became popular at the height of the British Empire, around the time Victoria was proclaimed "Empress of India," but Macaulay wrote them much earlier, long before he won his fame as an historian, in the years immediately before Victoria was crowned a queen. Lays of Ancient Rome has been reprinted on numerous occasions. An 1881 edition, lavishly illustrated by John Reinhard Weguelin, has frequently been republished. Countless schoolchildren have encountered the work as a means of introducing them to history, poetry, and the moral values of courage, self-sacrifice, and patriotism that Macaulay extolled.

Their leader was false Sextus, / That wrought the deed of shame: / With restless pace and haggard face / To his last field he came. / Men said he saw strange visions / Which none beside might see; / And that strange sounds were in his ears / Which none might hear but he. / A woman fair and stately, / But pale as are the dead, / Oft through the watches of the night / Sat spinning by his bed. / And as she plied the distaff, / In a sweet voice and low, / She sang of great old houses, / And fights fought long ago. / So spun she, and so sang she, / Until the east was gray. / Then pointed to her bleeding breast, / And shrieked, and fled away." I get a weekly allergy shot and have to wait in the doctor's office half an hour after each shot. This has been the treat that makes me look forward to those visits. I wouldn't allow myself to read it any other time.

Virginia

That what is called the history of the Kings and early Consuls of Rome is to a great extent fabulous, few scholars have, since the time of Beaufort, ventured to deny. It is certain that, more than three hundred and sixty years after the date ordinarily assigned for the foundation of the city, the public records were, with scarcely an exception, destroyed by the Gauls. It is certain that the oldest annals of the commonwealth were compiled more than a century and a half after this destruction of the records. The same story of Romulus and Remus is just a story which says that they founded on this day Rome. Read what a famous English historian wrote in his “Lays of Ancient Rome”, a collection of narrative poems, or lays: Thomas Babington Macaulay. Four of these recount heroic episodes from early Roman history with strong dramatic and tragic themes, giving the collection its name. The Lays were composed by Macaulay in his thirties, during his spare time while he was the "legal member" of the Governor-General of India's Supreme Council from 1834 to 1838. The Lays were composed by Macaulay in his thirties, during his spare time while he was the "legal member" of the Governor-General of India's Supreme Council from 1834 to 1838. He later wrote of them: The Battle of Lake Regillus - The Romans take arms against the powerful Latine league headed by the expelled Tarquin nobles. The fighting is desperate and bloody: the event is decided only after the arrival upon the battlefield of the twin gods Castor and Pollux. LARS PORSENA: Their captain, Horatio, has come out to meet us with two of his stout followers. They challenge us to trial by single combat.

Informs as it fascinates, Macaulay's Lays is altogether my favorite work of poetry. The words are evocative like no other poet I've read - Macauley manages to spin together action, suspense, gore, horror, and melodrama. Horatius at the Bridge is the highlight of the whole book, although the others are enjoyable too (Capys the least of the bunch): Regillus takes Horatius's Iliadic tone and expands it into a larger epic, Virginia brings to mind a short stage melodrama, and Capys is mostly a historical footnote to bring everything together. My two favorite stanzas (How can a man choose?!) are from Horatius and Regillus, respectively:Believe it or not the epigram “Rome was not built in a day”, meaning that some things cannot be done at once, but require time and patience, was not coined by Romans. As a matter of fact it first appeared in England in John Heywood’s “A Dialogue Containing the Number in Effect of All the Proverbes in the English Tongue” (1546). It was also used in “Don Quixote” (1605) by Miguel de Cervantes. Nowadays modern Romans usually do as they like, and do not expect others do as they do. You can see why the Victorians loved these verses by Macaulay, celebrating as they do the very Victorian virtues of Courage and Patriotism. I myself was swept up in some of Macaulay’s Lays, in particular I was moved by the poem “Horatius” whose famous lines pop up in films from time to time (such as Tom Cruise’s “Oblivion” and, more recently, the Churchill biopic “Darkest Hour.”): Was I moved by this? Hard to tell, for I was already weeping. I had begun to weep the moment Churchill began his recitation, for I remembered how my Aunt Alice--a contemporary of Sir Winston's--had often recited the very same passage to me. She was of Irish heritage, daughter of an immigrant from England, and had memorized these verses in a Cincinnati grade school during the final years of the First World War. (Aunt Alice also possessed a foot-high iron statue, of a Roman warrior with upraised sword, which she called "Horatius" and used as a door stop. He is still in service to our family, having guarded my bookshelves for most of the last twenty years.) This book is simply good. It is quality poetry that begs to be read aloud (or at the very least subvocalized if you are reading in a doctor's office like I was). Macaulay's introduction gives a fascinating description of the role of ballads and song in establishing and passing on culture. Each poem is then introduced with a description of the period and events it is describing. To read them is to be immersed in the contemplation of honor, love, courage, and sacrifice.