Page:Virgil - The Georgics, Thomas Nevile, 1767.djvu/50

 38 With, nor Ind, nor Bactra's lands,

Nor all Panchæa with her spicy sands.

Here no fire-breathing bulls the yoke have known,

Nor in the furrows serpents' teeth been sown,

Nor iron harvests of mens' helms and spears

Roughen'd the fields; but crops of bearded ears,

And Bacchus' purple gifts have throng'd the ground,

And olives flourish, and herds frisk around.

Hence prances to the plain the stately steed,

Hence the vast victim bull, and snow-white breed,

Oft in thy stream, Clitumnus, cleans'd from stains,

Precede Rome's triumphs to the hallow'd fanes.

In strange months summer, lasting spring we see,

Sheep twice are big, twice apples load the tree.

No lion-brood, no tigers roam the land;

Nor pois'nous plants deceive the reaper's hand;

Nor snakes their orbs immense along the plain

Snatch, nor in such vast volumes writhe their train.

Here labour'd works, proud cities strike our eyes;

Rear'd on rough rocks there towns aerial rise;

Beneath old battlements, see! rivers flow:

Shall I name ocean, that above, below,

Laves her? or vaunt her lakes? thee, Larius! thee,

Benacus! foaming like a troubled sea? Her