Georgics

Virgil

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

  1. In early spring-tide, when the icy drip
  2. Melts from the mountains hoar, and Zephyr's breath
  3. Unbinds the crumbling clod, even then 'tis time;
  4. Press deep your plough behind the groaning ox,
  5. And teach the furrow-burnished share to shine.
  6. That land the craving farmer's prayer fulfils,
  7. Which twice the sunshine, twice the frost has felt;
  8. Ay, that's the land whose boundless harvest-crops
  9. Burst, see! the barns. But ere our metal cleave
  10. An unknown surface, heed we to forelearn
  11. The winds and varying temper of the sky,
  12. The lineal tilth and habits of the spot,
  13. What every region yields, and what denies.
  14. Here blithelier springs the corn, and here the grape,
  15. There earth is green with tender growth of trees
  16. And grass unbidden. See how from Tmolus comes
  17. The saffron's fragrance, ivory from Ind,
  18. From Saba's weakling sons their frankincense,
  19. Iron from the naked Chalybs, castor rank
  20. From Pontus, from Epirus the prize-palms
  21. O' the mares of Elis. Such the eternal bond
  22. And such the laws by Nature's hand imposed
  23. On clime and clime, e'er since the primal dawn
  24. When old Deucalion on the unpeopled earth
  25. Cast stones, whence men, a flinty race, were reared.
  26. Up then! if fat the soil, let sturdy bulls
  27. Upturn it from the year's first opening months,
  28. And let the clods lie bare till baked to dust
  29. By the ripe suns of summer; but if the earth
  30. Less fruitful just ere Arcturus rise
  31. With shallower trench uptilt it—'twill suffice;
  32. There, lest weeds choke the crop's luxuriance, here,
  33. Lest the scant moisture fail the barren sand.