The Online Library of Liberty

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• P. Vergili Maronis Georgicon Liber Primus.
• The Georgics of Virgil. Book I.
• P. Vergili Maronis Georgicon Liber Secundus.
• The Georgics of Virgil. Book II.
• P. Vergili Maronis Georgicon Liber Tertius.
• The Georgics of Virgil. Book III.
• P. Vergili Maronis Georgicon Liber Quartus.
• The Georgics of Virgil. Book IV.

THE GEORGICS OF VIRGIL.

BOOK II.

• Thus far of the culture of fields and the stars of the sky have I sung:
• Now sing I, Bacchus, of thee, of the copses thou movest among,
• Of the offspring born of the slowly-growing olive-tree.
• Hither, O Lord of the Winepress!—of bounty lavished by thee
• Here all things are full: heavy-laden the land is in greenness blowing5
• With autumn tendrils: the winefat foams with lips overflowing—
• Hither, O Lord of the Winepress, come: cast thou aside
• Thy buskins; with me in the new-spilt juice be thy white limbs dyed!

• Manifold be the ways of Nature in bringing her trees to birth:
• There be some that by no compulsion of any man from the earth10
• Of their own will spring, wide-thronging the plain and the river that strays
• Far-winding, as gently-curving osiers, the broom’s lithe sprays,
• The poplar, the willow whose grey shows white in the wind as it sways.
• From seed in the earth dropped some rise up, as the chestnut’s tower,
• As Jove’s tree, king of the woods where spreadeth its broad green bower,15
• And the oak, which of Greeks was accounted an oracle of Jove.
• There sprouts from the roots of others a crowded under-grove,
• As the cherry, the elm; so likewise the bay in Parnassian glade
• Shelters itself like a child ’neath its mother’s ample shade.
• In such mould from the beginning did Nature cast them; the brood20
• Of the forest and copse so burgeon, and every hallowed wood.
• There be methods on which by her own path man’s experience came:
• One severeth cuttings of trees from the mother’s tender frame,
• And setteth in furrows: another grower will earth up a line
• Of root-stocks, stakes four-cleft, or pales to a point cut fine.25
• While some plantations await green arches of layered shoots
• And living nurseries clinging to earth with unsevered roots,
• There be others that need no root, nor the pruner doubts to restore
• To the earth her own, and to trust to her lap top-shoots that he shore.
• Nay more, men cleave into truncheons an olive-stem—wondrous to say—30

• And an oil-bearing root from the dry wood soon is pushing its way.
• And we oft see one tree’s branches—and none the less will they bear—
• Transferred to another, see grafted apples borne on a pear
• Transformed, see stony cornels with red plums flushing fair.

• Come then, learn, yeomen, the training to each tree due from its birth;35
• Make mellow by culture meet the wilding fruits of the earth.
• Let the land lie not idle! O joy to plant with the vine’s green pride
• Ismara, clothe with the olive Taburnus’ mighty side!
• Come thou, on the steep path speed whereon I have set my feet,
• O thou my glory, O more than the half of my fame, as is meet,40
• Maecenas! O spread thy flying sails o’er the far sea-line.
• I look not to compass all this theme in verses of mine:
• Ah no, though a hundred tongues I had, and mouths five-score,
• And an iron voice! Come, sail by the verge of the uttermost shore,
• With the land close by. I will hold thee not here with fabulous song,45
• I will not in mazes of words detain thee, nor prelude long.

• Such plants as uplift themselves unbidden to borders of day,
• Fruitless indeed, but lusty and strong in their springing are they:
• For under the soil stirs nature’s strength. Yet even these,
• If ye graft, or transplant into spade-worked trenches the natural trees,50
• Cast off their wildwood spirit: by tillage untiring controlled
• Will they follow thee unreluctant, reshaped as thy will may mould.
• Nay, barren suckers withal, at the parent’s base which stand,
• Will do this, so they be planted wide upon clear clean land:
• But now tall frondage and boughs of the mother-tree overgloom55
• And rob it of fruit as it grows, and blast it in act to bloom.
• Moreover, the tree that springs from seed in the earth’s lap laid
• Groweth slowly: thy far-off children’s children perchance shall it shade:
• Its fruits degenerate, wholly forgetting the savour they bare,
• And the vine bears clusters unsightly, fit spoil for birds of the air.60
• In sooth upon all must labour be spent, their characters framed
• In the school of the trench, at uncounted cost must their wildness be tamed.
• But better in truncheons do olives answer, and vines in layers:
• For the myrtle of Paphos stakes of the heart-wood the grower prepares.
• From slips tough-fibred hazels spring, and the huge ash-trees,65
• And the trunks broad-shaded whose leaves are the garland of Hercules:
• The Chaonian Father’s acorns, the palm-tree’s stately daughters
• Are thus born, yea, and the fir that shall look upon perils of waters.
• Nay more, the shaggy arbute is grafted with babe-slips ta’en
• From the walnut; vigorous apples are grown on the barren plane.70

• A beech bears chestnuts, a mountain-ash the silver-shine
• Of pear-blossom; under an elm have acorns been crushed by swine.
• Not one and the same are the methods of grafting and insetting “eyes:”
• For where, pushing forth from the midst of the bark, the soft buds rise,
• And burst their filmy coats, even here in the knot’s mid-wood75
• Is a slit made: deeply in this from an alien tree is a bud
• Enclosed, and the life of the bark and its sap is it taught to share:
• Or again, cut open are knotless stems, and a path cleft there
• With wedges into the heart-wood; therein doth the gardener place
• Slips of a fruit-bearing tree: thereafter in no long space80
• With fertile branches a noble tree hath skyward grown,
• And marvels at stranger boughs and fruits that seem not her own.

• Moreover, of no one kind all sturdy elm-trees are,
• Nor willow, nor lotus, nor cypresses born upon Ida afar;
• Nor do olives in all their fatness after one pattern grow:85
• There be round-berried, spindle-berried, and Pausians bitter enow.
• Nor Alcinous’ orchards have apples alike, nor the same shoot bears
• Crustumian pears and Syrian, and heavy warden-pears.
• Nor hangs from our nursing-trees the selfsame vintage-fruit
• As Lesbos plucketh away from Methymna’s green vine-shoot.90
• There be vines of Thasos, and vines Mareotic whose grapes are white,
• These for a rich loam meet, and those for a soil more light.
• The Psithian is fitter for raisin-wine, the Lagean is thin,
• Yet nets for the feet and snares for the babbling tongue are therein.
• There be purple grapes and the early:—O Rhaetian, in what high strain95
• Shall I hymn thee? Yet vie not with wines that Falernian vaults contain.
• Aminaean vines are there also, whose wines be the soundest of all;
• Before them the Tmolian and royal Phanaean in reverence fall;
• And the lesser Argitis: none with the flowing abundance may vie
• Of its juice, nor in strength to last while years on years go by.100
• O Rhodian, dear to the Gods and to banqueters merry with wine,
• Let me pass thee not by, nor Bumastus the heavy-clustered vine.
• But of all the manifold kinds, nay, even of the names they bear,
• No number there is; yea, even to count them none need care.
• Let who wishes to know them inquire how many grains of sand105
• Are tossed and whirled by the west-wind over the Libyan land:
• Let him learn, when the east-wind swoops on the ships with maddened roar,
• How many waves on Ionia’s sea roll up to the shore.

• Nor in sooth can all lands bear all manner of trees for men.
• By the river the willow is born, and amidst of the miry fen110

• The alder; the barren ashes on rock-strewn mountains grow;
• Sea-shores are with myrtles gay; hills bare to the sun’s warm glow
• The vine loves; dear to the yew is the north with its ice and snow.
• Mark how the world to her uttermost bounds is by tillers subdued,
• Unto Araby’s morningland homes, to the painted Gelonians rude.115
• Each several land hath its trees. Black ebony groweth alone
• In India; only Sabaeans the wand of frankincense own.
• Why should I tell thee the story of balms from an odorous stem
• That ooze?—of the evergreen thorn which shining berries begem?
• Why tell of the Aethiop woods all silvered with gossamer wool?—120
• What filmy fleeces from leaves the Serians comb and cull?—
• Of the forests that nigher than all unto Ocean in India grow
• By the uttermost gulf of the world, where no shaft shot from a bow
• Can speed through the highways of air its flight over any tree?
• Yet deft are the folk of the land in the quiver’s mastery.125
• The citron’s sharp sour juice, whose taste long lingereth,
• Media bears. There is naught more potent to save thee from death,
• Whensoever the cup hath been drugged by a ruthless stepdame’s spite,
• And poison-herbs have been mingled with spells of deadly might;
• Then it comes to thine help, and the baleful venom it drives from thy frame.130
• Like a giant laurel the tree is, in outward show the same;
• And, but for the strange sweet scent wide-flung on the air all round,
• A laurel it were: its leaves can no wind cast to the ground:
• Its flower cleaves close: with its essences Medes are wont to scent
• Rank breath, and relief to the asthma of age thereby is lent.135

• But neither the Median forests, how rich soever their land,
• Neither Ganges the lovely, nor Hermus cloudy with golden sand,
• With Italy’s glories may vie, nor Bactria, no, nor Ind,
• Nor Eldorado, whose incense-dust breathes rich on the wind.
• This land no bulls outsnorting flame ever furrowed, when140
• Therein had been sown the teeth of the monster Worm of the Fen,
• Nor a harvest hath bristled with helmets and serried spears of men.
• But her burden is heavy fruitage, with blood of the Massic vine
• Is she filled; she is thronged with olives, she laugheth with herds of kine.
• Here proudly paceth and pranceth the war-steed over the plain:145
• Thy milk-white cattle, Clitumnus, thy stately bull, to be slain
• On the altar, oft-times bathed in thine hallowing waters, come
• To lead to the high Gods’ temples the triumph-processions of Rome.
• Here is eternal spring, and in strange months summer’s glow:
• Twice yearly the cattle breed, and the trees with fruit bend low.150

• No ravening tigers be there, no ruthless lion-brood;
• No aconite cheateth the hapless who gather them herbs for food.
• No scale-clad python’s measureless coils like lightning sweep
• O’er the earth, nor he gathers his trailing spires for the deadly leap.
• O think of all those goodly cities uppiled by the hand155
• Of toiling man, of the burgs on her scarpéd cliffs that stand,
• Of the rivers that side ’neath their walls, the streams of a storied land!
• Shall I tell of her wave-washed coasts, of her western, her eastern sea,
• Of her far-spread lakes?—of thee, O mighty Larius, thee,
• Benacus, whose waves heave sea-like, and roar in stormy glee?160
• Shall I tell of thine havens, the barriers set to the Lucrine mere,
• Of the sea with indignant crash of his waters clamouring near,
• Where echoes the Julian wave to the back-recoiling sweep
• Of the main, and through straits of Avernus flow tides of the Tyrrhene deep?
• Streamlets of silver and ores of copper hath this land showed165
• In gleaming veins, yea, also with gold hath abundantly flowed.
• She hath reared her a race of heroes, of Marsians, Sabines strong,
• Of the hardship-inured Ligurians, the Volscian spearman-throng,
• Reared many a Decius, Marius, Camillus great in war,
• Reared Scipios battle-steadfast, and thee, her mightiest far,170
• Conqueror Caesar, who now, where on Asia’s far verge foam
• The seas, dost beat back craven Indians from ramparts of Rome.
• Hail, mighty mother of harvests! Hail, Saturnian soil,
• Mother of Heroes! Thy story of old renown and of toil
• I begin. I have dared to unseal the Muses’ holy spring,175
• And the song that Hesiod sang through Roman towns do I sing.

• Now of the characters of diverse soils, of their power,
• Will we speak, of their colours, the fruits they can bear by nature’s dower.
• First, then, ground unresponsive, and hill-slopes evil-willed,
• Where lean marl lies, and with pebbles the thorny copses are filled,180
• Yet joy in plantations of long-lived olives to Pallas dear.
• ’Tis a sign thereof when on that same tract groweth far and near
• The oleaster, and fields with its wilding berries are strown.
• But where there is rich soil, gladdened with moisture sweet, overgrown
• With herbage, levels fat with fertility—such as we spy185
• Oft, where far down ’twixt the mountains cup-like hollows lie,
• And whither from crag-crests streams trickle down, and the drift-mud silted
• Cometh fertility-laden;—and land to the south uptilted,
• Which nourisheth wiry ferns that trammel the curved ploughshare,
• Vigorous vines that shall stream with wine enough and to spare190

• This soil shall hereafter yield thee: of grapes shall it bear good store,
• Good store of the juice that from golden chalices forth we pour
• When the full-fed Tuscan blows by the altar his ivory horn,
• And on trenchers broad is the steaming flesh of our offerings borne.
• But and if thy desire be rather to kine, and their calves thou wouldst keep,195
• Or goats which ruin the vineyard, or fain wouldst breed thee sheep,
• Hie thee to glades by Tarentum the fertile stretching afar,
• And to meads such as Mantua lost to her sorrow after the war,
• Which feed the snow-white swans with the grasses that trail in the river.
• There limpid fountains shall fail not thy flocks, nor pasture-grass ever;200
• And how much soever the cattle may crop in a long day’s space,
• All this shall the cool dewfall of one short night replace.
• Earth black and seeming-greasy beneath the ploughshare’s weight,
• And whose soil is crumbly—for this by ploughing we imitate,—
• Is for corn-crops best,—from no manner of tilth-land shalt thou see205
• Thy steers to the homestead draw more wains heaped heavily—
• Or the land which the wrathful ploughman hath swept of timber clear,
• And hath felled the trees that have idly stood through many a year,
• And ancient homes of birds by the roots from the earth doth he tear:
• Forsaking their ruined nests they have fled to the heights of the air,210
• But the plain untilled ere this is gleaming bright ’neath the share.
• But the hungry gravel-soils on the slope of a hill that lie,
• Dwarf-spurge and rosemary for thy bees shall scarce supply.
• And the rugged tufa and chalk, where the viper hath gnawed her a nest,
• Defy all other lands to furnish the food loved best215
• Of serpents, and labyrinthine dens for the venomous pest.
• A soil that breathes out phantom mists and a fume light-flying,
• That drinks in rain and restores it untrenched, of its own will drying,
• Which arrayeth itself in a mantle of grass that is green evermore,
• Nor marreth iron with a scurf of salt rust scaling it o’er,220
• That land shall garland thine elms with the gems of the jubilant vine,
• Of oil shall be prodigal: thou shalt prove it by tillage of thine
• Kindly unto thy flock; it shall welcome the tusk of the plough.
• Such land rich Capua tills, and the shore ’neath Vesuvius’ brow,
• And Clanius ever unkind to Acerrae dispeopled now.225

• Now will I tell how the nature of diverse soils may be known,
• Be it light or unwontedly stiff that thou seekest for needs of thine own.
• For corn-crops meet is the one, the other shall flow with wine:
• The stiff is for Ceres, the lightest be all for the Lord of the Vine.
• Choose thou a spot with thine eyes, bid sink thee a pit down deep230

• In ground unbroken; thereafter throw back all that heap
• Of mould thereinto, and trample the surface down of the pit.
• If it sink below the brim, for the gracious vine is it fit
• And for pasture; but if it refuse to return to its place again,
• And when thou hast filled thy trench a mound of earth remain,235
• For a stiff soil’s stubborn clods and for massive ridges prepare,
• And strong be the steers that shall cleave that tilth-land with the share.
• But land that is salt—“sour land” the yeoman accounteth the same—
• Is for crops unmeet; no ploughing its evil nature may tame,
• Nor grapes grown there nor fruits will answer true to their name.240
• Now this is the sign thereof: pluck down from thy smoke-grimed roof
• Baskets and straining-sieves of the plaited osier tough;
• These fill with the evil soil, and with fountain-water sweet
• Soak it, and tread down. All that water from ’neath thy feet
• Shall struggle in great drops forth, and out through the wickerwork press:245
• And its savour shall give clear token, shall warp with loathing’s stress
• The mouths of such as essay to taste its bitterness.
• What soil moreover is fat by this device do we know:
• It breaks not apart when tossed from hand to hand to and fro,
• But in fashion of pitch to the fingers it cleaves when they deal with it so.250
• On damp soil taller the weeds are, and all too rankly grow.
• Ah, not by excess of fertility thus be my land betrayed,
• Nor with over-lusty life may it quicken the new-born blade!
• By the silent test of weight what soil is heavy is learned,
• Or what is light. By thine eyes black soil at a glance is discerned,255
• Yea, the colours of all. But of blasting cold the traces be few
• In a soil: yet sometimes there pitch-pines and the baleful yew,
• Or the dark-leaved ivy’s spreading fingers shall lend thee a clue.
• Note all these things, and bethink thee betimes in the sun to dry
• Thy land, with trenches and furrows to score the hill-slopes high,260
• And to lay the upturned clods all bare to the north-wind cold,
• Ere thou plant the vine’s glad children. Fields of crumbling mould
• Be the best: the wind and the chill frost work to render them so
• With the brawny delver who tosseth and stirreth the earth to and fro.
• Nay, men who will let slip no device of watchful care265
• Choose out betimes a place, and prepare them a nursery there
• Of soil like that where the vines shall soon be orderly ranged,
• Lest the babe-trees recognise not the mother suddenly changed.
• Nay, even the quarters of heaven do men on the young bark score,
• That, according as each tree faced, which side soever bore270

• The heat of the south, and turned its back to the northern pole,
• So they might plant it, so potent is early habit’s control.

• If on hills or on level ground thy vine-rows better shall stand
• Ask thyself first. For a fertile plain if thy vineyard be planned,
• Plant closely; from vines set thick no scantier harvests we reap.275
• But on sloping ground of knolls and on hillsides couched as in sleep
• Give ample space to the ranks: yet still each alley of vines
• Must be planned with angles squared, must be drawn with straight-ruled lines.
• As often in strife Titanic when legions in long array
• Deploy their cohorts, and columns are ranged in the plain for the fray,280
• Drawn out is the battle-line; like a billowy sea earth shows
• As the bronze flashes back to the sun, nor as yet do the grim fronts close
• In the grapple, but wavers the War-god as doubtful between two foes.
• Let alleys in equal measurement meted to all be assigned,
• Not merely to pleasure the eye, nor for joy of a vacant mind;285
• But only thus impartially earth upon all will bestow
• Of her strength, and through clear air-space their branches the vines will throw.

• Thou wouldst haply inquire what depth and dip to a trench we grant.
• A vine in never so shallow a furrow I fearlessly plant;
• But deeper-set is the tree, is rooted in earth far down,290
• The oak above all: as high to the heaven as it lifteth its crown
• Through the air, so deeply its roots through the darkness Hadesward go;
• And so no wintry storms, no rains, no blasts that blow
• Can upwrench it: unmoved it abides, sees children’s children die
• Through long generations of men as the victor years roll by.295
• He spreadeth his arms in his strength and his boughs on every side,
• And his central tower upbears a forest of shade flung wide.

• See that thou let not thy vineyards slope to the dying day,
• Nor plant thou the hazel between the vines, neither prune away
• The highest shoots, nor break from the tree any topmost spray,—300
• So strong is their love of earth,—neither bruise the tender bud
• With a blunt knife: plant not between them truncheons of wild olive-wood;
• For oftentimes by the heedless shepherd is dropped a spark
• Which, stealthily hiding at first beneath the oily bark,
• Layeth hold on the heart-wood: forth over leaf and spray doth it glide,305
• Till loudly it crackles skyward: along the boughs doth it ride
• Victorious, and stretcheth from tree-top to tree-top its sceptre of fire,
• Wraps all the plantation in flames, and streams ever thicker and higher
• Uptossing an eddying cloud of pitchy gloom to the sky;
• Then chiefly, if on the forest a tempest have swooped from on high,310

• And a great wind rolleth and sweepeth the conflagration on.
• Thereafter the tree-stocks have no strength; their power is gone,
• Though ye cut them back, of reviving, of springing green from the ground
• As before: oleaster barren and bitter reigns all round.

• Hold no man so wise that his counsel should move thee to break with the share315
• The frost-stiffened earth when the north-wind is breathing death through the air.
• Then winter prisons the land in ice; yea, seed may ye fling,
• But he suffereth not the frost-numbed root to the earth to cling.
• ’Tis the vine’s best planting-season, when cometh in spring’s blush-glow
• The radiant snow-white bird, the long-backed viper’s foe;320
• Or hard on the Fall’s first chill, when the fiery-footed team
• Of the sun not yet touch winter, when summer fleets as a dream.
• With blessing to woodland-frondage and forest Spring returns.
• In spring earth heaves with desire, for the seed life-laden she yearns:
• Then Heaven, the Father almighty, in quickening showers descends325
• Into the lap of his gladsome bride: in his might he blends
• With her mighty frame, and to all her offspring life doth he bring;
• Then pathless copses with music of birds re-echoing ring;
• And the beasts are rekindled with love in the days ordained of the Spring.
• The land with her boons is in travail, to west-winds warmly blowing330
• Fields open their arms; all things are with delicate sap overflowing.
• In the suns new-born all seedlings safely and fearlessly trust.
• No vine-shoot dreadeth the south-wind’s suddenly rising gust,
• Or the rain-storm that over the sky the mighty north-wind hurls:
• But each pushes gem-buds forth, and her green leaf-banners unfurls.335
• None other, I fain would believe, were the sunlit days that began
• In the dawn of the infant creation, nor other the course that they ran.
• Ah, that was a spring indeed! Spring’s festival-tide was kept
• By the whole world’s round: all wintry blasts of the east-wind slept
• When the first-born cattle drank in like wine the sunlight, and stood340
• With heads erect on the earth’s firm floor man’s iron brood.
• Wild things were let loose in the forests, stars blossomed in fields of the sky.
• Those soft young lives ’neath their burden of toil would faint and die,
• Had not so blessèd a restful space ’twixt cold been given
• And heat, and earth been embraced by the grace and the mercy of Heaven.345

• For the rest, whatsoever plantations throughout thy lands thou wilt set,
• To spread rich dung and to bury it deeply thou shalt not forget,
• Nor to dig in porous stone or the sea-shell rugged of scale;
• For the rains will sink between them, and phantom vapours exhale,
• And so shall the slips take courage: and ere now men have I known350

• To press them down ’neath the weight of a massy tile or a stone.
• This they devised for a screen against wide-streaming rain,
• Or the Dogstar’s heat, when gapeth with thirsty lips the plain.

• When the seedlings are set, it remaineth again and again to throw
• The mounded earth to their crowns, and to swing the stubborn hoe,355
• Or to labour the ground with the deep-driven share, and to wheel to and fro
• Thy straining steers between thy vines, through row after row,
• And, again, to fit smooth reeds together, and wand-shafts peeled,
• And ashwood staves, and props whose forked heads will not yield,
• By the strength whereof they shall upward strain, and shall learn to despise360
• The winds, and from story to story of those elm-towers shall rise.

• In the growing-time of the early youth of the young green things,
• Be to their tenderness gentle, and while the glad shoot springs
• Upward, as though sped on loose-reined through cloudless air,
• Not yet with the edge of the pruning-hook be it touched, but with care365
• Pluck away with thy fingers the shoots, and thin the foliage there.
• Then, when they have clasped the elm with wiry trailer and stem,
• And have shot up, strip their tresses, and lop the arms of them.
• Till then do they dread the steel, but now at the last do thou raise
• Authority’s standard, and crush the rebellion of trailing sprays.370

• Thou must weave for thee hurdles, and barriers of these against all sheep set.
• While the tender leaf of the labours awaiting it dreams not yet,
• Nor how worse than unmerited storms or than tyrannous suns are the roes
• Persistently trespassing: out of the woods come buffaloes
• To mock its endeavours: sheep will make it their grazing-ground,375
• And greedy heifers. Nor winter with hoary frost hard-bound,
• Nor summer, on scorched rocks heavily brooding, do such despite
• To the vine, as the flocks, for their poisonous teeth with a pestilence smite
• The plants: there is death in the scar that is left on the stem by their bite.
• For none other crime on the Wine-god’s altar the goat do they slay,380
• What time on the stage steps forth the immemorial play,
• And through village and hamlet the sons of Theseus ordain the prize
• For the contest of wits, and blithe of heart from the wine-cup rise
• To dance on the wine-skin oiled, on the mead’s soft grass which lies.
• And Ausonia’s yeomen, whose sires were the remnant from Troy that remained,
• With uncouth verses sport and with laughter unrestrained.
• They don misfeatured masks of the hollowed bark of the tree,
• And in pauses of jubilant song, O Bacchus, they call upon thee;
• And soft babe-faces of thee do they hang from the lofty pine.
• Herefrom with abundant increase bloometh ever the vine;390

• And filled is the cup-like valley, the mountain-cradled dell,
• Wheresoever the God’s sweet face turns, casting fertility’s spell.
• Meetly therefore the honour to Bacchus due will we sing
• In hymns ancestral, the platters of cakes unto him will we bring:
• And led by the horns shall the doomed he-goat by the altar stand,395
• And on hazelwood spits fat inwards shall broil o’er the blazing brand.

• For the care of thy vines remaineth withal that other toil
• Whereon no labour expended sufficeth; for all the soil
• Must thrice and four times yearly be ploughed, and ever and aye
• With the swinging mattock the clods must be broken, and stripped away400
• The leaves’ excess. The husbandman’s toil is an endless round
• Ever renewed as the feet of the year are on old tracks found.
• Ay, even when vines have cast late-lingering leaves to the ground,
• And the chill North strippeth the woods of their crown of glory bare;
• Even then is the tireless yeoman onward stretching his care405
• To the coming year, presses onward with Saturn’s curving bill
• To lop the leafless vine, and by pruning shape to his will.
• Be the first to dig the soil, be the first on the balefire to cast
• Waste loppings, and first to house vine-props when the vintage is past;
• But be latest to gather the grapes. Twice yearly the shade thickens close,
• Twice yearly with thistle and thorn the weed-growth smothers the rows:
• Sore toil both lay upon thee. Ay, dream broad acres be good,
• But few do thou till! Moreover, the rough broom-sprays in the wood
• Must be cut, and the reed on the bank beside the river’s flow:
• And the osier-bed, albeit untilled, needs care enow.415
• At last are the vines tied up, the pruning-knife drops from the hand,
• The last vinedresser sings o’er the rows that finished stand—
• Yet rest cometh not; the soil must be humoured, the mould must be stirred,
• And in fancy the rush of the rain on the ripened clusters is heard.

• Contrariwise, no need have olives of culture; they420
• Nor look for the pruning-hook’s sweep, nor the mattock’s unyielding sway,
• When once they are rooted in earth, and have stood the rush of the air.
• The earth herself, when her breast is laid by the curved plough bare,
• Giveth moisture in plenty, the touch of the share breeds heavy increase.
• So shalt thou nurture the olive whose fatness is dear unto Peace.425

• Orchard-trees too, so soon as they feel through their stems strength rise,
• And have gotten them vigour, upward swiftly, as seeking the skies,
• By their own power climb, and they have no need of human aid.
• Nor less with fruit are the boughs of all woods earthward weighed;
• Wild haunts of birds are flushing with berries red as blood:430

• Mown is the cytisus, torches are given by the tall pine-wood,
• And the nightlong fires are fed; far streams their ruddy glare.
• And hesitate men to plant and to lavish on trees all care?
• Why dwell on the great trees only?—the osier, the lowly broom
• Yield leaves for the flock and the shepherd with cool shade overgloom:435
• Hedges for crops they supply, and they pasture the honey-bees.
• Fain would I gaze on Cytorus’ billows of dark box-trees,
• On groves of Narycian pine: full fain over fields would I gaze
• That owe no debt to the mattock, nor any of mortal race!
• Yea, even the fruitless forests high upon Caucasus’ crest,440
• Which the furious east-winds shatter and toss to and fro without rest,
• Give each what he beareth; wood for the service of man they bestow,
• Give pines for the ships, and for dwellings the cedar and cypress they grow.
• From one do the husbandmen turn wheel-spokes, from one solid wheels
• For wains, from another they lay for the ships long curving keels.445
• Withs spring from the hazels, in leafage the elm-trees fruitful are,
• In strong spear-shafts the myrtle and cornel trusty in war.
• Bent are the limbs of the yew into Ituraean bows:
• On the linden smooth and on lathe-turned box such form we impose
• As we will, and the steel of the chisel hollows the yielding wood.450
• Yea, also the alder-trunk swims light on the rushing flood
• Sped down the Po; yea, also the bees hide swarm and comb
• Deep in the caverned bark or the heart of a mouldering holm.
• What boons more worthy of praise doth Bacchus’ bounty bestow?
• Nay, Bacchus hath given occasion for blame: it was he laid low455
• The Centaurs in death, and Rhoecus, to hell sped Pholus’ soul,
• Slew Hylaeus in act to hurl at the Lapiths the huge wine-bowl.

• Ah, knew they their happiness, all too favoured the yeomen are,
• They for whom earth most righteous, from clash of arms afar,
• From the soil doth outlavish ungrudged for all life’s needs of her store!460
• What though no stately mansion through lordly portals pour
• Morning by morning a sea of clients from court and hall,
• Nor with parted lips on the cloudy shell upon door-posts tall
• Men gaze, nor on vests gold-broidered, nor bronzes from Ephyre’s strand,
• Nor on white wool dyed with the poison-drug of Morning-land,465
• Nor by casia spoiled oil-olive from lawful service is banned.
• But theirs is the peace unharassed, the life that has nothing to hide,
• That has manifold store, the restfulness of landscapes wide,
• Dim caverns and spring-fed meres, cool Tempe’s whispering glade,
• Slumbrous lowing of cattle, and balmy sleep ’neath the shade,470

• All, all are there—wood-lawns and coverts where wild things lie,
• Men that are strong to labour, are hardened to poverty.
• There Gods are worshipped, there age is revered. Or ever she passed
• From earth, amid these folk Justice imprinted her footfalls last.

• But chiefly me may the Muses, to me above all things dear,475
• Who have thrilled me with deep strong love, whose sacred things I bear,
• Receive, show the highways of heaven, the stars, tell wherefore at noon
• The sun dies, wherefore in travail is darkened the face of the moon,
• Whence cometh the quaking of earth, by what force heave deep seas
• Dashing their barriers down, and thereafter sink to peace,480
• Why hasten so swiftly the suns of winter to quench their heat
• In ocean, what hindrance trammels the night’s slow-trailing feet.
• But and if I may not draw near great Nature’s mysteries,
• For that clogged is mine heart with the blood whose channels around it freeze,
• Dear to me then be the fields, be the streams through the valleys that flow,485
• My fameless love upon rivers be set, and on forests:—and oh
• For the low-lying meads by Spercheius, for revels of Spartan maids
• On Taygetus! Oh were I standing mid Haemus’ cool green glades,
• That he covered mine head with the Titan shield of his forest-shades!
• Oh happy, whose heart hath attained Creation’s secret to know,490
• Who hath trampled all haunting fears underfoot, nor dreadeth the blow
• Of Fate the relentless, the roar of insatiate Acheron’s flow!
• Oh favoured is he who knoweth the Gods of the green wild land,
• The Lords of the Forest and Grove, and the Nymphs, their sister-band!
• He stoops not to consuls’ axes, he bows not to purple of kings,495
• He recks not of hate that the hearts of faithless brethren wrings,
• Nor of leagues by the Danube, or Dacians that down from their mountains descend,
• Nor hath trembled for Rome’s dark fortune, for empires nigh to their end.
• No poverty sees he to pity, no rich men to envy for aught.
• He hath gathered the fruits of the tree-bough, the willing tribute brought500
• By the fields, he hath seen no statutes as iron unyielding-wrought,
• Nor hath looked on the madding Forum, the archives destiny-fraught.
• Others may tempt with oars the printless sea, may fling
• Their lives to the sword, may press through portals and halls of a king.
• This traitor hath ruined his country, hath blasted her homes, thereby505
• To drink from a jewelled chalice, on Orient purple to lie:
• That fool hoards up his wealth, and broods o’er his buried gold:
• That simple-one gazes rapt on the rostra: the loud cheers rolled
• Down the theatre-seats, as Fathers and people acclaiming stood,
• Have entranced yon man: men drench them with joy in their brethren’s blood:510

• Into exile from home and its sweet, sweet threshold some have gone
• Seeking a country that lieth beneath an alien sun.
• But the husbandman furrows the land with his curved ploughshare; herefrom
• Comes the toil of his year; ’tis the stay of his country and lowly home;
• It feedeth the herds of his kine and the steers that earn their keep;515
• And her fruits without surcease doth the year in his bosom heap.
• With offspring of flocks she dowers him, with sheaves from Ceres’ store;
• With increase she loadeth the furrows, till barns can hold no more.
• Cometh winter—the berry of Sicyon crushed in the oil-press streams;
• Swine troop home fat from the acorns, in woods the arbute gleams.520
• Fruits manifold autumn lays at his feet: on the rock sun-glowing
• High up is the vintage hanging, to mellow ripeness growing.
• His sweet little children the while around him for kisses cling.
• The home is a stronghold of modesty chaste. To the byre kine bring
• Udders that heavily droop: fat kids on the lush grass play,525
• As one with another they wrestle with horns in mimic fray.
• Himself upon feast-days resteth: outstretched on the grass-grown ground,
• Where crackles the fire in the midst, and the bowl by his comrades is crowned,
• With libations he calleth on thee, O Winefat-lord. On the bark
• Of the elm for the swift dart-throwing of shepherds he scoreth a mark;530
• And they bare their iron limbs for the rustic wrestlers’ strife.
• In far-off days did the olden Sabines live such life;
• So Remus lived, and his brother; Etruria thus waxed strong
• Of a surety, and Rome became a glory the nations among.
• Of cities alone with a rampart she girdled citadels seven.535
• Yea, ere the King Dictaean had grasped the sceptre of Heaven,
• Ere an impious race for their banquets of blood the oxen slew,
• Such life as this upon earth King Saturn the Golden knew.
• Nor yet had they heard war-clarions blown, nor hearkened the clang
• Of the forging, when laid on the stubborn anvils the sword-blades rang.540

• But now in the course have we covered a boundless breadth of plain:
• Time is it from reeking necks of the horses to loosen the rein.