Page:Virgil - The Georgics, Thomas Nevile, 1767.djvu/94

 82 While from the peccant part the swains forbear

Their healing hands, and piously by pray'r

Seek succour of the Gods, neglected thrives

The lurking taint, and by concealment lives.

But on the bones when pangs deep-gliding prey,

And feverish fervours waste the strength away,

It oft avail'd to sooth the burning pain,

And lance between the hoof the bounding vein:

A remedy the Thracian Borderers prize,

And fierce Gelonian Rover, when he flies

To mountains, dreary desarts, and with blood

Of horses thicken'd swills the milky flood.

Far from her fleecy fellows should a sheep

To shady shelter oft be seen to creep,

Languidly listless the green herbage taste,

Nibbling the tops, or loitering lag the last,

Feeding sink on the plain, and at late eve

With solitary step the pasture leave;

Check with your knife the threat'nings of the pest,

Ere the dire venom seize th' unwary rest.

Less frequent far, black harbinger of storms,

The rushing whirlwind the vext main deforms,

Than Plagues unnumber'd on the cattle prey:

Nor single bodies do they snatch away, But