Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 1.pdf/393

Geor. IV. Behold a Prodigy! for from within The broken Bowels, and the bloated Skin, A buzzing noise of Bees their Ears alarms, Straight issue thro' the Sides assembling Swarms: Dark as a Cloud they make a wheeling Flight, Then on a neighb'ring Tree, descending, light: Like a large Cluster of black Grapes they show, And make a large dependance from the Bough.
 * Thus have I sung of Fields, and Flocks, and Trees,

And of the waxen Work of lab'ring Bees; While mighty Cæsar, thund'ring from afar, Seeks on Euphrates Banks the Spoils of War: With conqu'ring Arts asserts his Country's Cause, With Arts of Peace the willing People draws: On the glad Earth the Golden Age renews, And his great Father's Path to Heav'n pursues. While I at Naples pass my peaceful Days, Affecting Studies of less noisy Praise; And bold, thro' Youth, beneath the Beechen Shade, The Lays of Shepherds, and their Loves have plaid.