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Book IX. They, trusting to the Gods, plant not, or plough, But earth unsow'd, untill'd, brings forth for them All fruits, wheat, barley, and the vinous grape Large cluster'd, nourish'd by the show'rs of Jove. No councils they convene, no laws contrive, But in deep caverns dwell, found on the heads Of lofty mountains, judging each supreme His wife and children, heedless of the rest. In front of the Cyclopean haven lies A level island, not adjoining close Their land, nor yet remote, woody and rude. There, wild goats breed numberless, by no foot Of man molested; never huntsman there, Inured to winter's cold and hunger, roams The dreary woods, or mountain-tops sublime; No fleecy flocks dwell there, nor plough is known, But the unseeded and unfurrow'd soil, Year after year a wilderness by man Untrodden, food for blatant goats supplies. For no ships crimson-prow'd the Cyclops own, Nor naval artizan is there, whose toil Might furnish them with oary barks, by which Subsists all distant commerce, and which bear Man o'er the Deep to cities far remote Who might improve the peopled isle, that seems Not steril in itself, but apt to yield, In their due season, fruits of ev'ry kind. For stretch'd beside the hoary ocean lie