Page:Virgil - The Georgics, Thomas Nevile, 1767.djvu/27

 Book I. These and the middle zone between, kind heav'n

Two more in pity to frail man has giv'n:

Thro' these a way is cut, in radiant round

Obliquely wheeling where the signs are found.

High as the world at Scythia's steeps ascends,

So low as Libya's sands it downward bends:

One pole for ever it's aerial brow

Lifts o'er our heads; one the pale ghosts below

And sable Styx beneath their feet behold:

There glides the Dragon of enormous mould,

And, winding like a river, wreaths his train

Between the Bears, the Bears that dread the main.

Here, or perpetual rests still night 'tis said,

And adds new horrors to the thick'ning shade,

Or from our hemisphere with gladd'ning ray

Aurora hastens, and brings back the day;

And when on us Sol's panting steeds first breath,

Then lights clear Vesper the late lamps beneath.

Hence in the dubious sky we learn to know

The threatening tempest, when to reap and sow,

Lash the false sea with oars, in lengthen'd line

Arrange arm'd fleets, or fell the forest-pine.

Nor think that vainly the stars set and rise,

Or that the vary'd year no hints supplies. When