Georgics
- 1.1.1
What makes the cornfield smile; beneath what star
- 1.1.2
Maecenas, it is meet to turn the sod
- 1.1.3
Or marry elm with vine; how tend the steer;
- 1.1.4
What pains for cattle-keeping, or what proof
- 1.1.5
Of patient trial serves for thrifty bees;—
- 1.1.6
Such are my themes. O universal lights
- 1.1.7
Most glorious! ye that lead the gliding year
- 1.1.8
Along the sky, Liber and Ceres mild,
- 1.1.9
If by your bounty holpen earth once changed
- 1.1.10
Chaonian acorn for the plump wheat-ear,
- 1.1.11
And mingled with the grape, your new-found gift,
- 1.1.12
The draughts of Achelous; and ye Fauns
- 1.1.13
To rustics ever kind, come foot it, Fauns
- 1.1.14
And Dryad-maids together; your gifts I sing.
- 1.1.15
And thou, for whose delight the war-horse first
- 1.1.16
Sprang from earth's womb at thy great trident's stroke,
- 1.1.17
Neptune; and haunter of the groves, for whom
- 1.1.18
Three hundred snow-white heifers browse the brakes,
- 1.1.19
The fertile brakes of Ceos; and clothed in power,
- 1.1.20
Thy native forest and Lycean lawns,
- 1.1.21
Pan, shepherd-god, forsaking, as the love
- 1.1.22
Of thine own Maenalus constrains thee, hear
- 1.1.23
And help, O lord of Tegea! And thou, too,
- 1.1.24
Minerva, from whose hand the olive sprung;
- 1.1.25
And boy-discoverer of the curved plough;
- 1.1.26
And, bearing a young cypress root-uptorn,
- 1.1.27
Silvanus, and Gods all and Goddesses,
- 1.1.28
Who make the fields your care, both ye who nurse
- 1.1.29
The tender unsown increase, and from heaven
- 1.1.30
Shed on man's sowing the riches of your rain:
- 1.1.31
And thou, even thou, of whom we know not yet
- 1.1.32
What mansion of the skies shall hold thee soon,
- 1.1.33
Whether to watch o'er cities be thy will,
- 1.1.34
Great Caesar, and to take the earth in charge,
- 1.1.35
That so the mighty world may welcome thee
- 1.1.36
Lord of her increase, master of her times,
- 1.1.37
Binding thy mother's myrtle round thy brow,
- 1.1.38
Or as the boundless ocean's God thou come,
- 1.1.39
Sole dread of seamen, till far Thule bow
- 1.1.40
Before thee, and Tethys win thee to her son
- 1.1.41
With all her waves for dower; or as a star
- 1.1.42
Lend thy fresh beams our lagging months to cheer,
- 1.1.43
Where 'twixt the Maid and those pursuing Claws
- 1.1.44
A space is opening; see! red Scorpio's self
- 1.1.45
His arms draws in, yea, and hath left thee more
- 1.1.46
Than thy full meed of heaven: be what thou wilt—
- 1.1.47
For neither Tartarus hopes to call thee king,
- 1.1.48
Nor may so dire a lust of sovereignty
- 1.1.49
E'er light upon thee, howso Greece admire
- 1.1.50
Elysium's fields, and Proserpine not heed
- 1.1.51
Her mother's voice entreating to return—
- 1.1.52
Vouchsafe a prosperous voyage, and smile on this
- 1.1.53
My bold endeavour, and pitying, even as I,
- 1.1.54
These poor way-wildered swains, at once begin,
- 1.1.55
Grow timely used unto the voice of prayer.
- 1.43.56
In early spring-tide, when the icy drip
- 1.43.57
Melts from the mountains hoar, and Zephyr's breath
- 1.43.58
Unbinds the crumbling clod, even then 'tis time;
- 1.43.59
Press deep your plough behind the groaning ox,
- 1.43.60
And teach the furrow-burnished share to shine.
- 1.43.61
That land the craving farmer's prayer fulfils,
- 1.43.62
Which twice the sunshine, twice the frost has felt;
- 1.43.63
Ay, that's the land whose boundless harvest-crops
- 1.43.64
Burst, see! the barns. But ere our metal cleave
- 1.43.65
An unknown surface, heed we to forelearn
- 1.43.66
The winds and varying temper of the sky,
- 1.43.67
The lineal tilth and habits of the spot,
- 1.43.68
What every region yields, and what denies.
- 1.43.69
Here blithelier springs the corn, and here the grape,
- 1.43.70
There earth is green with tender growth of trees
- 1.43.71
And grass unbidden. See how from Tmolus comes
- 1.43.72
The saffron's fragrance, ivory from Ind,
- 1.43.73
From Saba's weakling sons their frankincense,
- 1.43.74
Iron from the naked Chalybs, castor rank
- 1.43.75
From Pontus, from Epirus the prize-palms
- 1.43.76
O' the mares of Elis. Such the eternal bond
- 1.43.77
And such the laws by Nature's hand imposed
- 1.43.78
On clime and clime, e'er since the primal dawn
- 1.43.79
When old Deucalion on the unpeopled earth
- 1.43.80
Cast stones, whence men, a flinty race, were reared.
- 1.43.81
Up then! if fat the soil, let sturdy bulls
- 1.43.82
Upturn it from the year's first opening months,
- 1.43.83
And let the clods lie bare till baked to dust
- 1.43.84
By the ripe suns of summer; but if the earth
- 1.43.85
Less fruitful just ere Arcturus rise
- 1.43.86
With shallower trench uptilt it—'twill suffice;
- 1.43.87
There, lest weeds choke the crop's luxuriance, here,
- 1.43.88
Lest the scant moisture fail the barren sand.
- 1.71.89
Then thou shalt suffer in alternate years
- 1.71.90
The new-reaped fields to rest, and on the plain
- 1.71.91
A crust of sloth to harden; or, when stars
- 1.71.92
Are changed in heaven, there sow the golden grain
- 1.71.93
Where erst, luxuriant with its quivering pod,
- 1.71.94
Pulse, or the slender vetch-crop, thou hast cleared,
- 1.71.95
And lupin sour, whose brittle stalks arise,
- 1.71.96
A hurtling forest. For the plain is parched
- 1.71.97
By flax-crop, parched by oats, by poppies parched
- 1.71.98
In Lethe-slumber drenched. Nathless by change
- 1.71.99
The travailing earth is lightened, but stint not
- 1.71.100
With refuse rich to soak the thirsty soil,
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