Yet golden corn each laughing valley fills,
The vintage reddens on a thousand hills,
Luxuriant olives spread from shore to shore,
And flocks unnumber'd range the pastures o'er.
Hence the proud war-horse rushes on the foe,
Clitumnus! hence thy herds, more white than snow,

And stately bull, that, of gigantic size,

Supreme of victims on the altar lies,

Bath'd in thy sacred stream oft led the train
When Rome in pomp of triumph deck'd the fane.
Here Spring perpetual leads the laughing Hours,
And Winter wears a wreath of summer flowers:
Th' o'erloaded branch twice fills with fruits the year,
And twice the teeming flocks their offspring rear.
Yet here no lion breeds, no tiger strays,

No tempting aconite the touch betrays,

No monstrous snake th' uncoiling volume trails,
Or gathers orb on orb his iron scales.
But many a peopled city towers around,
And many a rocky cliff with castle crown'd,
And many an antique wall whose hoary brow
O'ershades the flood that guards its base below.
Say, shall I add, enclos'd on either side,
What seas defend thee, and what lakes divide?
Thine, mighty Larius? or, with surging waves,
Where, fierce as ocean, vext Benacus raves?
Havens and ports, the Lucrine's added mole,
Seas that enrag'd along their bulwark roll,

761

Where Julian waves reject th' indignant tide,
And Tuscan billows down Avernus glide ?
Here brass and silver ores rich veins expose,
And pregnant mines exhaustless gold enclose.
Blest in thy race, in battle unsubdu❜d,

The Marsian youth, and Sabine's hardy brood,
By strenuous toil the bold Ligurians steel'd,
And spear-arm'd Volsci that disdain to yield :
Camilli, Marii, Decii, swell thy line,

And, thunderbolts of war, each Scipio, thine!
Thou Cæsar! chief, whose sword the East o'erpow'rs,
And the tam'd Indian drives from Roman towers.
All hail, Saturnian earth hail, lov'd of fame,
Land, rich in fruits, and men of mighty name !
For thee I dare the sacred founts explore,
For thee, the rules of ancient art restore,
Themes, once to glory rais'd again rehearse,
And pour through Roman towns th' Ascræan verse.
Now learn the strength and colour of the fields,
What varying fruits their varying nature yields.
Know first, th' ungenial hill, and barren land,
Where steril beds of hungry clay expand,
And thorns and flints deface the rugged earth,
Demand the long-liv'd plants, Palladian birth,
Wild olives there from many a wanton shoot
Shower the rude berry and uncultur'd fruit.
But fertile land, by genial moisture fed,

Where the thick herbage mats th' exuberant bed,

Land, such as wanderers on the mountain brow

View in the shelter'd vale that smiles below,

O'er whose green bosom many a lively rill
Rich nurture streams from each o'erhanging hill:
And plains that to the south their upland turn,
And rear, abhorr'd by ploughs, th' unfruitful fern ;
There shall large grapes on crowded clusters grow,
Wines that to gods from golden bowls o'erflow,
When the swoln Tuscan pipes th' invoking strain,
And bending chargers smoke before the fane.
Do tender lambs thy pastoral care invite,
Kine with their calves, or wanton kids delight?
Seek far Tarentum's glades and fertile shores,
And plains which hapless Mantua still deplores,
Where silver swans along the Mincio glide,
And crop the herbage that o'erhangs the tide.
There, as thy flocks slow wind along the vale,
No blade shall wither, and no fountain fail,
Cool dews restore beneath night's transient hours.
All that thy herd each live-long day devours.
For wheaten harvests Nature points her bed
Black, rich, and crumbling underneath the tread
Such as the swains by gradual art prepare,
And form and fashion by the culturing share;
Homeward at nightfall from no fairer plain
The tir'd ox slowly drags the frequent wain.
Or where rich soil has idly slept unknown,
Age after age by forest wilds o'ergrown, Y

Th' indignant peasant fells th' uprooted wood,
And ancient mansions of the feather'd brood;
The houseless exiles wing the waste of air,
Gay gleams the land new-opening to the share.
But where th' unequal champaign swells around,
And hungry gravel starves the barren ground,
There rosemary and casia scarce distil

Sweets for the bee that murmurs round the hill:
And mouldering stones that crumble to decay,

[way,

And chalk where black'ning snakes have gnaw'd their
There lurks in winding caves the serpent breed,

And gathers poison from each baleful weed.
Where lands light clouds and vapourous fog exhale,
Drink, and at will with mists condense the gale,
Clothe their green lap with grass that never fades,
Nor rust the share that cuts their humid blades
There shall the olive spread her fruitful race,
There marriageable vines the elm embrace;
And there, alike indulgent to the 'swain,

Grass feed the flock, or furrows glow with grain.
Such the rich land that round fam'd Capua lies,
Such, where Vesuvius' giant heights arise,
Or where prone Clanius, raging far and wide,
Pours o'er Acerra's waste its torrent tide.
Now mark the rules by sage experience tried,
Rules that the nature of each soil decide.
Seek'st thou to know the land, if dense or rare,
This fit for vines, that suited to the share?

44

GEORGICS......BOOK IT.

For Ceres floats with gold the denser plain,
And o'er the rare, Lyæus loves to reign:
With careful eye select th' appropriate ground,
There sink in solid earth a pit profound;

Then to the land its former soil restore,

And press with frequent footstep o'er and o'er.
Sinks the loose mould beneath its. former bed?
There give thy flocks to range, thy vines to spread;
But if the stubborn earth its bounds disdain,
Rise round the pit, and stiffen on the plain,
Along th' obdurate glebe and ling'ring clay
Break with resistless steers thy forceful way..
Test of the soil, where bitter salts abound,
Where never ploughshare meliorates the ground,
Where the vine droops, and fruits, renown'd of fame,
Lose, as they fade, their nature and their name:
Take, where they hung thy smoky roof beneath,
Strainers and baskets plash'd with osier wreath;
There heap th' infected earth, and closely tread,
Mix'd with pure water from the fountain head;
Then as the struggling exudations flow,

Forc'd through the osiers drop by drop below,
The saturated streams the soil betray,

And lips, that taste, distorted turn away.

Like pitch, close prest, the fat uncrumbling land
Cleaves to the touch, and spreads beneath the hand.
The humid earth large herbs luxuriant feeds,

And with rank wildness. clothes th' unfaithful meads:41%