The timbers search and season.
To cite thee many a maxim of the old,
Unless thou shrinkest back, and it doth irk thee
Such lowly cares to learn. The threshing floor
Among thy earliest tasks must smooth be levell❜d
With hugeous roller, and upturn'd by hand,
And mass'd with binding chalk, lest there spring
Oft 'neath thy grounds hath both its homesteads fix'd,
And built its gran'ries; or of eyes bereft,
Moles have their chambers dug; and toad in cells
Oft found; and all the many monster forms Which earth brings forth and mighty though it be,
Thy wheaten pile the weazle devastates;
And ant of fearful thought for helpless eld.
Observe too, when the walnut tree in woods
Most thickly into bloom itself shall throw,
And bow its branches od'rous; if redound
The fruitage, in like form thy grains will follow,
And copious threshing come with copious heat :
But if with growth profuse of leaves gush forth
Umbrage, in vain, rich but with chaff, the stalks
Thy floor shall bruise. Seeds I in truth have
Full many a farmer medicate when sowing,
And first with nitre, and black oil-lees drench;
That fuller in fallacious pods the fruit
Might prove: And yet, although, o'er a slow
Quicken'd they drank the moisture; I have seen. them
Though cull'd for days, and prov'd with many a toil,
Degenerate still, unless man's art each year Pick'd out by hand the largest. Thus by fate All rushes to decay; and stealthily
Lapsing is backward borne, e'en as the wight Who scarce against an adverse stream his bark With oars is forcing. If his arms by chance He once has slack'd, 'tis o'er, and him all headlong
Down the prone stream the central current
Next full as much by us must Arcto's stars,
And the Kids' days be watch'd, and glitt'ring
Snake,
E'en as by them, by whom o'er storm-tost seas
Into their country wafted is essay'd
Pontus, and gulphs of oyster-rife Abydus.
When Libra hath the hours of day and sleep
Just balanc'd, and midway 'twixt light and shades
The globe doth now dispart, ply, sturdy swains,
Your bullocks, sow your barleys in the plains,
Till the last shower of frost intractable.
So too both flaxen crop, and cereal poppy
'Tis time with mould to cover, and long erst
To stoop to ply the harrows, while, with earth
Still dry we may; while clouds are hanging high.
In spring tide is the sowing for thy beans;
Then thee too, Median plant, in mould'ring state
Receive the furrows; and for millet comes
The yearly care; when bright, with gilded
horns
Taurus the year is oping, and the Dog
Before the back-turn'd star retiring sets.
But if for bearded crop, and hardy spelts
Earth thou shalt ply, and press for ears alone;
First to thy sight at early dawn be hidden
The Atlantid quire, and let the Gnosian star,
Gem of the blazing diadem withdraw,
Ere the due seeds to furrows thou commit,
And ere to earth, reluctant still, thou haste
The promise of the year to trust.
Full many
Ere Maia's setting have begun; but such
The look'd-for crop with empty ears has mock'd.
But if both vetch thou'lt sow and cheap faselus,
Nor spurn the tending of Pelusian lentil,
Signs not obscure, when setting, will Bootes
Send thee; commence, and to mid frosts protract
Thy sowing. To this end in portions fix'd
Its orb outmeted through the world's twelve stars
The golden sun doth steer. Five zones embrace
The heav'ns; whereof one with fire-flashing Sol
Aye crimson'd; and for aye scorch'd up of fire.
Round which on verge extreme to right and left
Others are drawn, crusted with sapphire-ice
And murky showers. These between and cen-
tral,
Two are to heart-sick mortals yielded up
By gift of Heav'n. A path is cut through both,
Whereon oblique the chain of signs might wheel.
E'en as the globe to Scythia, and the heights
Riphæan towers aloft, so, is it sunk
Down sloping unto Libya's southern gales.
This pole for aye is heav'd sublime above us;
But that beneath its feet black Styx beholds
And deep-gulf'd Manes. Here the giant snake
Glides forth around with mazy coil, and like
A river, through the Arctos twain, the Arctos
That fear in ocean's level tide to bathe.
There, as they say, either in silence dwells
Untimely Night eternally, and 'neath
Night's canopy are shadows gather'd thick.
Or morn returns from us, and convoys back
The day; and when on us the earliest East
Hath breathed with panting his coursers, there
Its 'lated lamps doth crimson Vesper kindle.
Hence storms in doubtful skies may we forelearn;
Hence both the day of harvest, and the hour
Of sowing, and what time the treach’rous sea
Of marble it may suit with oars to dash;
When our arm'd fleets to launch, or season'd well
In woods t' upturn the pine. Nor all in vain,
Settings and risings of the stars we watch,
And in divergent seasons four the year
Equally portion'd. If at times the swain
A gelid shower imprisons, many a task
Which later 'neath a sky serene might be
Fit to be hasten'd, to mature 'tis given.
The ploughman hammers forth the iron tooth
Of blunted share: scoops from a tree his troughs,
Or badge on flock, or cyphers upon stacks
Hath stamped. Others sharpen out their stakes,
And forks twin-pronged; and, Ameria's growth,
For the lithe vine its ligaments prepare.
Now, a light task, weav'd let the basket be
Of bramble twig; now parch with fire your
Now crush with stone. Since e'en on festal days
Some tasks to ply laws both of heaven and man
Permit. To drain off streams no pious awe
Did e'er forbid, a hedge before the crop
To stretch, for birds our ambuscades to plot,
Brambles to fire, and of the bleating ones
The flock to plunge beneath the stream of health.
Ofttimes with oil the sluggard ass's ribs
Its driver loadeth, or with apples cheap;
And as he homeward turns a 'dented stone
Or lump of inky pitch brings from the town.
Luna herself days in their different order
Hath fix'd as blest for work. Beware the fifth:
Wan Orcus, and the Furies then were born;
Then with a travail pang unutterable
Both Cous and Iapetus doth Earth
Gender, and fierce Typhæus, and the band
Of brothers sworn the Empyrean to destroy.
Thrice did they gather all their strength to heap
Ossa on Pelion sooth, and upon Ossa
To roll the forest-clad Olympus. Thrice
The Sire their up-piled mountains with his bolt
Hurl'd into ruins. Fortunate the day
That seventh upon the tenth doth follow, both
To plant the vine, and break thy oxen caught,
And add more threads unto thy web; the ninth
For flight more friendly, enemy to thefts.
Yea, many a task beneath the gelid night
Have offer'd themselves fairer, or when now
With Sol still fresh, the morning star is bathing
The earth with dew. By night the stubble light,
By night the arid meads are better mow'd.
And one there is who to the winter lights'
Late fires unbroken vigils keeps, and points
With sharpen'd steel his torches. All the while
His tedious travail solacing with song,
His spouse with rattling shuttle threads her webs;
Or of the luscious must with Vulcan's aid
Boileth the liquid down; and skimmeth off
With leaves the quiv'ring caldron's bubbling wave.
But ruddy Ceres in mid heat is cut,
And in mid heat the floor its parch'd corn bruises. Stripp'd plough- sow stripp'd-winter is lazy time
For husbandman. In frosts their gather'd gain
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