Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 1.pdf/238

94 Ye Deities! who Fields and Plains protect, Who rule the Seasons, and the Year direct; Bacchus and fost'ring Ceres, Pow'rs Divine, Who gave us Corn for Mast, for Water Wine: Ye Fawns, propitious to the Rural Swains, Ye Nymphs that haunt the Mountains and the Plains, Join in my Work, and to my Numbers bring Your needful Succour, for your Gifts I sing. And thou, whose Trident struck the teeming Earth, And made a Passage for the Coursers Birth. And thou, for whom the Cæan Shore sustains Thy Milky Herds, that graze the Flow'ry Plains. And thou, the Shepherds tutelary God, Leave, for a while, O Pan! thy lov'd Abode: And, if Arcadian Fleeces be thy Care, From Fields and Mountains to my Song repair. Inventor, Pallas, of the fat'ning Oyl, Thou Founder of the Plough and Plough-man's Toyl; And thou, whose Hands the Shrowd-like Cypress rear; Come all ye Gods and Goddesses, that wear The rural Honours, and increase the Year. You, who supply the Ground with Seeds of Grain; And you, who swell those Seeds with kindly Rain: And chiefly thou, whose undetermin'd State Is yet the Business of the Gods Debate: Whether in after Times to be declar'd The Patron of the World, and Rome's peculiar Guard,