Clusium

Oh, when I joined the Eagles

(As it might be yesterday)

I kissed a girl at Clusium

Before I marched away.

A long march, a long march, and twenty years in store,

When I left my girl at Clusium, beside the threshing-floor.

The girls of Spain were honey-sweet,

And the golden girls of Gaul:

And the Thracian maids were soft as birds

To hold the heart in thrall.

But the girl I kissed at Clusium,

Kissed and left at Clusium,

The girl I kissed at Clusium I remember best of all.

A long march, a long march, and twenty years behind

But the girl I kissed at Clusium comes easy to my mind.

-- From The Eagle of the Ninth. Story and words by Rosemary Sutcliff. Oxford UP, 1954