Georgics

Virgil

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

  1. Nor is the method of inserting eyes
  2. And grafting one: for where the buds push forth
  3. Amidst the bark, and burst the membranes thin,
  4. Even on the knot a narrow rift is made,
  5. Wherein from some strange tree a germ they pen,
  6. And to the moist rind bid it cleave and grow.
  7. Or, otherwise, in knotless trunks is hewn
  8. A breach, and deep into the solid grain
  9. A path with wedges cloven; then fruitful slips
  10. Are set herein, and—no long time—behold!
  11. To heaven upshot with teeming boughs, the tree
  12. Strange leaves admires and fruitage not its own.