Page:Virgil - The Georgics, Thomas Nevile, 1767.djvu/74

 62 Smit with th' Olympic palm who coursers feeds,

Or sturdy bullocks for the ploughshare breeds,

Must mark the mothers; and first choose a cow,

That spreads a brawny neck, of torvous brow,

Of head uncouth, and from whose chin he sees

Loose dangling dewlaps trembling at her knees:

Then her side long and large; all vast of size:

Her foot too, and her ears, that bristly rise:

Nor one with white spots dappled would I scorn,

Shy of the yoke, and churlish with her horn;

A bull in face, that lofty in her gait

Trails on the ground her tail in sweepy state.

Lucina and the nuptial rites they shun,

Till his fourth annual progress Sol has run;

The ninth year ends their pains; the rest allow

Nor plight nor strength for breeding, or the plough.

Indulge the males with liberty betime,

While your herds frolick in youth's wanton prime:

Soon give the cattle love's delights to try,

The sinking race attentive to supply

With a perpetual stock: life's better day

From all of mortal birth first flits away, Disease