Georgics
- 1.311.401
Seen all the windy legions clash in war
- 1.311.402
Together, as to rend up far and wide
- 1.311.403
The heavy corn-crop from its lowest roots,
- 1.311.404
And toss it skyward: so might winter's flaw,
- 1.311.405
Dark-eddying, whirl light stalks and flying straws.
- 1.311.406
Oft too comes looming vast along the sky
- 1.311.407
A march of waters; mustering from above,
- 1.311.408
The clouds roll up the tempest, heaped and grim
- 1.311.409
With angry showers: down falls the height of heaven,
- 1.311.410
And with a great rain floods the smiling crops,
- 1.311.411
The oxen's labour: now the dikes fill fast,
- 1.311.412
And the void river-beds swell thunderously,
- 1.311.413
And all the panting firths of Ocean boil.
- 1.311.414
The Sire himself in midnight of the clouds
- 1.311.415
Wields with red hand the levin; through all her bulk
- 1.311.416
Earth at the hurly quakes; the beasts are fled,
- 1.311.417
And mortal hearts of every kindred sunk
- 1.311.418
In cowering terror; he with flaming brand
- 1.311.419
Athos, or Rhodope, or Ceraunian crags
- 1.311.420
Precipitates: then doubly raves the South
- 1.311.421
With shower on blinding shower, and woods and coasts
- 1.311.422
Wail fitfully beneath the mighty blast.
- 1.311.423
This fearing, mark the months and Signs of heaven,
- 1.311.424
Whither retires him Saturn's icy star,
- 1.311.425
And through what heavenly cycles wandereth
- 1.311.426
The glowing orb Cyllenian. Before all
- 1.311.427
Worship the Gods, and to great Ceres pay
- 1.311.428
Her yearly dues upon the happy sward
- 1.311.429
With sacrifice, anigh the utmost end
- 1.311.430
Of winter, and when Spring begins to smile.
- 1.311.431
Then lambs are fat, and wines are mellowest then;
- 1.311.432
Then sleep is sweet, and dark the shadows fall
- 1.311.433
Upon the mountains. Let your rustic youth
- 1.311.434
To Ceres do obeisance, one and all;
- 1.311.435
And for her pleasure thou mix honeycombs
- 1.311.436
With milk and the ripe wine-god; thrice for luck
- 1.311.437
Around the young corn let the victim go,
- 1.311.438
And all the choir, a joyful company,
- 1.311.439
Attend it, and with shouts bid Ceres come
- 1.311.440
To be their house-mate; and let no man dare
- 1.311.441
Put sickle to the ripened ears until,
- 1.311.442
With woven oak his temples chapleted,
- 1.311.443
He foot the rugged dance and chant the lay.
- 1.351.444
Aye, and that these things we might win to know
- 1.351.445
By certain tokens, heats, and showers, and winds
- 1.351.446
That bring the frost, the Sire of all himself
- 1.351.447
Ordained what warnings in her monthly round
- 1.351.448
The moon should give, what bodes the south wind's fall,
- 1.351.449
What oft-repeated sights the herdsman seeing
- 1.351.450
Should keep his cattle closer to their stalls.
- 1.351.451
No sooner are the winds at point to rise,
- 1.351.452
Than either Ocean's firths begin to toss
- 1.351.453
And swell, and a dry crackling sound is heard
- 1.351.454
Upon the heights, or one loud ferment booms
- 1.351.455
The beach afar, and through the forest goes
- 1.351.456
A murmur multitudinous. By this
- 1.351.457
Scarce can the billow spare the curved keels,
- 1.351.458
When swift the sea-gulls from the middle main
- 1.351.459
Come winging, and their shrieks are shoreward borne,
- 1.351.460
When ocean-loving cormorants on dry land
- 1.351.461
Besport them, and the hern, her marshy haunts
- 1.351.462
Forsaking, mounts above the soaring cloud.
- 1.351.463
Oft, too, when wind is toward, the stars thou'lt see
- 1.351.464
From heaven shoot headlong, and through murky night
- 1.351.465
Long trails of fire white-glistening in their wake,
- 1.351.466
Or light chaff flit in air with fallen leaves,
- 1.351.467
Or feathers on the wave-top float and play.
- 1.351.468
But when from regions of the furious North
- 1.351.469
It lightens, and when thunder fills the halls
- 1.351.470
Of Eurus and of Zephyr, all the fields
- 1.351.471
With brimming dikes are flooded, and at sea
- 1.351.472
No mariner but furls his dripping sails.
- 1.351.473
Never at unawares did shower annoy:
- 1.351.474
Or, as it rises, the high-soaring cranes
- 1.351.475
Flee to the vales before it, with face
- 1.351.476
Upturned to heaven, the heifer snuffs the gale
- 1.351.477
Through gaping nostrils, or about the meres
- 1.351.478
Shrill-twittering flits the swallow, and the frogs
- 1.351.479
Crouch in the mud and chant their dirge of old.
- 1.351.480
Oft, too, the ant from out her inmost cells,
- 1.351.481
Fretting the narrow path, her eggs conveys;
- 1.351.482
Or the huge bow sucks moisture; or a host
- 1.351.483
Of rooks from food returning in long line
- 1.351.484
Clamour with jostling wings. Now mayst thou see
- 1.351.485
The various ocean-fowl and those that pry
- 1.351.486
Round Asian meads within thy fresher-pools,
- 1.351.487
Cayster, as in eager rivalry,
- 1.351.488
About their shoulders dash the plenteous spray,
- 1.351.489
Now duck their head beneath the wave, now run
- 1.351.490
Into the billows, for sheer idle joy
- 1.351.491
Of their mad bathing-revel. Then the crow
- 1.351.492
With full voice, good-for-naught, inviting rain,
- 1.351.493
Stalks on the dry sand mateless and alone.
- 1.351.494
Nor e'en the maids, that card their nightly task,
- 1.351.495
Know not the storm-sign, when in blazing crock
- 1.351.496
They see the lamp-oil sputtering with a growth
- 1.351.497
Of mouldy snuff-clots.
- 1.393.498
So too, after rain,
- 1.393.499
Sunshine and open skies thou mayst forecast,
- 1.393.500
And learn by tokens sure, for then nor dimmed
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Perseus Latin. CTS URN phi0690.phi002.perseus-eng2. Via the Perseus Digital Library / Open Greek and Latin TEI corpora. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0. Source.