The poem
On an ebony bed decorated with coral eagles, sound asleep lies Nero -- unconscious, quiet, and blissful; thriving in the vigor of flesh, and in the splendid power of youth.
But in the alabaster hall that encloses the ancient shrine of the Aenobarbi how restive are his Lares. The little household gods tremble, and try to hide their insignificant bodies. For they heard a horrible clamor, a deathly clamor ascending the stairs, iron footsteps rattling the stairs. And now in a faint the miserable Lares, burrow in the depth of the shrine, one tumbles and stumbles upon the other, one little god falls over the other for they understand what sort of clamor this is, they are already feeling the footsteps of the Furies.