Page:Virgil - The Georgics, Thomas Nevile, 1767.djvu/47

 Book II. Nor to insert the graff, and eye include,

Deem the same task: where sprouting gems protrude

From the mid bark, and pierce the membranes, there

A small and strait recess is slit with care:

For this a bud from a strange tree they find,

And bid it grow into the weeping rind.

Or the cut knotless stock the deep wedge cleaves,

And the cleft bole the fertile graffs receives:

Strait with rich boughs to heav'n the Tree aspires,

And foreign leaves and foreign fruit admires.

Nor yet to Elms, or Willows is assign'd,

To Lotes, or Cypresses, a single kind:

Of Olives, whether Orchites the name,

Pausia, or Radii, various is the frame:

Unnumber'd forms Alcinous' fruitage wears,

Nor apples less; and shoots distinguish pears:

Nor such ripe clusters do our vines command,

As in Methymna tempt the Gatherer's hand.

A fat soil suits the Mareotic vine;

Men to the Thasian a light glebe consign.

The Psythia, proper in the sun to dry,

And, whose quick fumes the tongue and feet will try,

The thin Lageos, Purple, ask my verse,

And Early grape: say, how shall I rehearse Thy