Eclogues

Virgil

Vergil. The Poems of Vergil. Rhoades, James, translator. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.

Not Phoebus doth the rude Parnassian crag

so ravish, nor Orpheus so entrance the heights

of Rhodope or Ismarus: for he sang

how through the mighty void the seeds were driven

of earth, air, ocean, and of liquid fire,

how all that is from these beginnings grew,

and the young world itself took solid shape,

then 'gan its crust to harden, and in the deep

shut Nereus off, and mould the forms of things