The Georgics [English] | Page 6

and take and tame the steer,?And fix the leashes to the warp; the ninth?To runagates is kinder, cross to thieves.?Many the tasks that lightlier lend themselves?In chilly night, or when the sun is young,?And Dawn bedews the world. By night 'tis best?To reap light stubble, and parched fields by night;?For nights the suppling moisture never fails.?And one will sit the long late watches out?By winter fire-light, shaping with keen blade?The torches to a point; his wife the while,?Her tedious labour soothing with a song,?Speeds the shrill comb along the warp, or else?With Vulcan's aid boils the sweet must-juice down,?And skims with leaves the quivering cauldron's wave.?But ruddy Ceres in mid heat is mown,?And in mid heat the parched ears are bruised?Upon the floor; to plough strip, strip to sow;?Winter's the lazy time for husbandmen.?In the cold season farmers wont to taste?The increase of their toil, and yield themselves?To mutual interchange of festal cheer.?Boon winter bids them, and unbinds their cares,?As laden keels, when now the port they touch,?And happy sailors crown the sterns with flowers.?Nathless then also time it is to strip?Acorns from oaks, and berries from the bay,?Olives, and bleeding myrtles, then to set?Snares for the crane, and meshes for the stag,?And hunt the long-eared hares, then pierce the doe?With whirl of hempen-thonged Balearic sling,?While snow lies deep, and streams are drifting ice.?What need to tell of autumn's storms and stars,?And wherefore men must watch, when now the day?Grows shorter, and more soft the summer's heat??When Spring the rain-bringer comes rushing down,?Or when the beards of harvest on the plain?Bristle already, and the milky corn?On its green stalk is swelling? Many a time,?When now the farmer to his yellow fields?The reaping-hind came bringing, even in act?To lop the brittle barley stems, have I?Seen all the windy legions clash in war?Together, as to rend up far and wide?The heavy corn-crop from its lowest roots,?And toss it skyward: so might winter's flaw,?Dark-eddying, whirl light stalks and flying straws.?Oft too comes looming vast along the sky?A march of waters; mustering from above,?The clouds roll up the tempest, heaped and grim?With angry showers: down falls the height of heaven,?And with a great rain floods the smiling crops,?The oxen's labour: now the dikes fill fast,?And the void river-beds swell thunderously,?And all the panting firths of Ocean boil.?The Sire himself in midnight of the clouds?Wields with red hand the levin; through all her bulk?Earth at the hurly quakes; the beasts are fled,?And mortal hearts of every kindred sunk?In cowering terror; he with flaming brand?Athos, or Rhodope, or Ceraunian crags?Precipitates: then doubly raves the South?With shower on blinding shower, and woods and coasts?Wail fitfully beneath the mighty blast.?This fearing, mark the months and Signs of heaven,?Whither retires him Saturn's icy star,?And through what heavenly cycles wandereth?The glowing orb Cyllenian. Before all?Worship the Gods, and to great Ceres pay?Her yearly dues upon the happy sward?With sacrifice, anigh the utmost end?Of winter, and when Spring begins to smile.?Then lambs are fat, and wines are mellowest then;?Then sleep is sweet, and dark the shadows fall?Upon the mountains. Let your rustic youth?To Ceres do obeisance, one and all;?And for her pleasure thou mix honeycombs?With milk and the ripe wine-god; thrice for luck?Around the young corn let the victim go,?And all the choir, a joyful company,?Attend it, and with shouts bid Ceres come?To be their house-mate; and let no man dare?Put sickle to the ripened ears until,?With woven oak his temples chapleted,?He foot the rugged dance and chant the lay.?Aye, and that these things we might win to know?By certain tokens, heats, and showers, and winds?That bring the frost, the Sire of all himself?Ordained what warnings in her monthly round?The moon should give, what bodes the south wind's fall,?What oft-repeated sights the herdsman seeing?Should keep his cattle closer to their stalls.?No sooner are the winds at point to rise,?Than either Ocean's firths begin to toss?And swell, and a dry crackling sound is heard?Upon the heights, or one loud ferment booms?The beach afar, and through the forest goes?A murmur multitudinous. By this?Scarce can the billow spare the curved keels,?When swift the sea-gulls from the middle main?Come winging, and their shrieks are shoreward borne,?When ocean-loving cormorants on dry land?Besport them, and the hern, her marshy haunts?Forsaking, mounts above the soaring cloud.?Oft, too, when wind is toward, the stars thou'lt see?From heaven shoot headlong, and through murky night?Long trails of fire white-glistening in their wake,?Or light chaff flit in air with fallen leaves,?Or feathers on the wave-top float and play.?But when from regions of the furious North?It lightens, and when thunder fills the halls?Of Eurus and of Zephyr, all the fields?With brimming dikes are flooded, and at sea?No mariner but furls his dripping sails.?Never at unawares did shower annoy:?Or, as it rises, the high-soaring cranes?Flee to the vales before it, with face?Upturned to heaven,