Georgics

Virgil

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

  1. Aye, and that these things we might win to know
  2. By certain tokens, heats, and showers, and winds
  3. That bring the frost, the Sire of all himself
  4. Ordained what warnings in her monthly round
  5. The moon should give, what bodes the south wind's fall,
  6. What oft-repeated sights the herdsman seeing
  7. Should keep his cattle closer to their stalls.
  8. No sooner are the winds at point to rise,
  9. Than either Ocean's firths begin to toss
  10. And swell, and a dry crackling sound is heard
  11. Upon the heights, or one loud ferment booms
  12. The beach afar, and through the forest goes
  13. A murmur multitudinous. By this
  14. Scarce can the billow spare the curved keels,
  15. When swift the sea-gulls from the middle main
  16. Come winging, and their shrieks are shoreward borne,
  17. When ocean-loving cormorants on dry land
  18. Besport them, and the hern, her marshy haunts
  19. Forsaking, mounts above the soaring cloud.
  20. Oft, too, when wind is toward, the stars thou'lt see
  21. From heaven shoot headlong, and through murky night
  22. Long trails of fire white-glistening in their wake,
  23. Or light chaff flit in air with fallen leaves,
  24. Or feathers on the wave-top float and play.
  25. But when from regions of the furious North
  26. It lightens, and when thunder fills the halls
  27. Of Eurus and of Zephyr, all the fields
  28. With brimming dikes are flooded, and at sea
  29. No mariner but furls his dripping sails.
  30. Never at unawares did shower annoy:
  31. Or, as it rises, the high-soaring cranes
  32. Flee to the vales before it, with face
  33. Upturned to heaven, the heifer snuffs the gale
  34. Through gaping nostrils, or about the meres
  35. Shrill-twittering flits the swallow, and the frogs
  36. Crouch in the mud and chant their dirge of old.
  37. Oft, too, the ant from out her inmost cells,
  38. Fretting the narrow path, her eggs conveys;
  39. Or the huge bow sucks moisture; or a host
  40. Of rooks from food returning in long line
  41. Clamour with jostling wings. Now mayst thou see
  42. The various ocean-fowl and those that pry
  43. Round Asian meads within thy fresher-pools,
  44. Cayster, as in eager rivalry,
  45. About their shoulders dash the plenteous spray,
  46. Now duck their head beneath the wave, now run
  47. Into the billows, for sheer idle joy
  48. Of their mad bathing-revel. Then the crow
  49. With full voice, good-for-naught, inviting rain,
  50. Stalks on the dry sand mateless and alone.
  51. Nor e'en the maids, that card their nightly task,
  52. Know not the storm-sign, when in blazing crock
  53. They see the lamp-oil sputtering with a growth
  54. Of mouldy snuff-clots.