Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 1.pdf/299

Geor. II. Thus Roman Youth deriv'd from ruin'd Troy, In rude Saturnian Rhymes express their Joy: With Taunts, and Laughter loud, their Audience please, Deform'd with Vizards, cut from Barks of Trees: In jolly Hymns they praise the God of Wine, Whose Earthen Images adorn the Pine; And there are hung on high, in honour of the Vine: A madness so devout the Vineyards fills. In hollow Valleys and on rising Hills; On what e'er side he turns his honest face, And dances in the Wind, those Fields are in his grace. To Bacchus therefore let us tune our Lays, And in our Mother Tongue resound his Praise. Thin Cakes in Chargers, and a Guilty Goat, Dragg'd by the Horns, be to his Altars brought; Whose offer'd Entrails shall his Crime reproach, And drip their Fatness from the Hazle Broach. To dress thy Vines new labour is requir'd, Nor must the painful Husbandman be tir'd: For thrice, at least, in Compass of the Year, Thy Vineyard must employ the sturdy Steer, To turn the Glebe; besides thy daily pain To break the Clods, and make the Surface plain: T'unload the Branches or the Leaves to thin, That suck the Vital Moisture of the Vine. Thus in a Circle runs the Peasant's Pain, And the Year rowls within it self again.