Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 1.pdf/251

Geor. I. But if your Care to Wheat alone extend, Let Maja with her Sisters first descend, And the bright Gnosian Diadem downward bend: Before you trust in Earth your future Hope; Or else expect a listless lazy Crop. Some Swains have sown before, but most have found A husky Harvest, from the grudging Ground. Vile Vetches wou'd you sow, or Lentils lean, The Growth of Egypt, or the Kidney-bean? Begin when the slow Waggoner descends, Nor cease your sowing till Mid-winter ends: For this, thro' twelve bright Signs Apollo guides The Year, and Earth in sev'ral Climes divides. Five Girdles bind the Skies, the torrid Zone Glows with the passing and repassing Sun. Far on the right and left, th' extreams of Heav'n, To Frosts and Snows, and bitter Blasts are giv'n. Betwixt the midst and these, the Gods assign'd Two habitable Seats for Humane Kind: And cross their limits cut a sloping way, Which the twelve Signs in beauteous order sway. Two Poles turn round the Globe; one seen to rise O'er Scythian Hills, and one in Lybian Skies. The first sublime in Heav'n, the last is whirl'd Below the Regions of the nether World. Around our Pole the spiry Dragon glides, And like a winding Stream the Bears divides;