Georgics
Virgil
Vergil. The Poems of Vergil. Rhoades, James, translator. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.
- Come then, and learn what tilth to each belongs
- According to their kinds, ye husbandmen,
- And tame with culture the wild fruits, lest earth
- Lie idle. O blithe to make all Ismarus
- One forest of the wine-god, and to clothe
- With olives huge Tabernus! And be thou
- At hand, and with me ply the voyage of toil
- I am bound on, O my glory, O thou that art
- Justly the chiefest portion of my fame,
- Maecenas, and on this wide ocean launched
- Spread sail like wings to waft thee. Not that I
- With my poor verse would comprehend the whole,
- Nay, though a hundred tongues, a hundred mouths
- Were mine, a voice of iron; be thou at hand,
- Skirt but the nearer coast-line; see the shore
- Is in our grasp; not now with feigned song
- Through winding bouts and tedious preludings
- Shall I detain thee.