Page:Virgil - The Georgics, Thomas Nevile, 1767.djvu/20

 8 Or Sol's more potent fervours, or the cold

Of penetrating Boreas scorch the mould.

Nor is the ground ungrateful to the swain,

Who plies his harrows oft, and o'er the plain

Drags osier hurdles; from her throne on high

On him brown Ceres bends a gracious eye:

Nor less his fields he profits, who once more

Cleaves the rough ridges he had rais'd before,

His share obliquely turn'd, with callous hands

Incessant toils, the tyrant of his lands.

Ye husbandmen! intreat the gods by pray'r

For wat'ry solstices, and winters fair:

With laughing corn the laughing lands abound,

On the dry earth when brumal dust is found:

At no time Mysia boasts so rich a plain,

And Garg'rus wonders at his waving grain.

Need I name him, who, having sown his seed,

Rests not, but prosecutes his task with speed,

Of the lean gravel sweeps away the hills,

Then from the fountains calls the streamy rills?

With dying herbage when the parcht glebe glows,

Down channell'd steeps th' obedient runnel flows;

O'er the smooth stones a murmur hoarse it yields,

And with brisk bubblings cools the thirsty fields. Or