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8 To shield the morals while it mends the size, And all the powers of every food supplies— Attend the lesson that the Muse shall bring, Suspend your spoons, and listen while I sing.


 * But since, O man! thy life and health demand

Not food alone, but labour from thy hand, First in the field, beneath the sun’s strong rays, Ask of thy mother, earth the needful maize; She loves the race that courts her yielding soil, And gives her bounties to the sons of toil.


 * When now the ox obedient to thy call,

Repays the loan that fill’d the winter stall, Pursue his traces o’er the furrow’d plain, And plant in measur’d hills the golden grain. But when the tender germ begins to shoot, And the green spire declares the sprouting root, Then guard your nursling from each greedy foe, Th’ insidious worm, the all-devouring crow. A little ashes, sprinkled round the spire, Soon steep’d in rain, will bid the worm retire; The feather’d robber with his hungry maw Swift flies the field before your man of straw, A frightful image, such as school-boys bring When met to burn the Pope, or hang the King.


 * Thrice in the season, thro’ each verdant row

Wield the strong plough-share and the faithful hoe— The faithful hoe, a double task that takes, To till the summer corn, and roast the winter cakes.


 * Slow springs the blade, while check’d by chilling rains,

Ere yet the sun the seat of Cancer gains; But when his fiercest fires emblaze the land, Then start the juices, then the roots expand; Then, like a column of Corinthian mould, The stalk struts upward, and the leaves unfold; The busy branches all the ridges fill, Entwine their arms, and kiss from hill to hill. Here cease to vex them, all your cares are done; Leave the last labours to the parent sun; Beneath his genial smiles the well-dress’d field, When autumn calls, a plenteous crop shall yield.