Bathed in soft dew, and fann'd by western winds,
Each field its bosom to the gale unbinds :

384

The blade dares boldly rise new suns beneath,
The tender vine puts forth her flexile wreath,
And, freed from southern blast and northern shower,
Spreads without fear, each bud, and leaf, and flower.
Yes! lovely Spring! when rose the world to birth,
Thy genial radiance dawn'd upon the earth,
Beneath thy balmy air creation grew,

And no bleak gale on infant Nature blew.

390

When herds first drank the light, from Earth's rude

bed

When first man's iron race uprear'd its head,

When first to beasts the wild and 'wood were given,

And stars unnumber'd paved th' expanse of heaven; Then as through all the vital spirit came,

395

And the globe teem'd throughout its mighty frame,

Each tender being, struggling into life,

Had droop'd beneath the elemental strife,
But thy mild season, each extreme between,

Soft nurse of Nature, gave the golden mean.

400

Guard, when you set the plants, their infant rows, Feed with manure, with plenteous mould inclose; Shells in their bed, and spongy stones inhume, To draw the dew down earth's imbibing womb; Hence shall each root new life and strength inhale, And catch the spirit of the genial gale;

406

393 This seems, at first sight, to be oddly put together: the forests were stocked with beasts and the heavens with constellations. It was not so in these times, when the constellations were generally considered as real animals, and many of them as men, but most of them as beasts. The prologue to the Rudens of Plautus is spoken by Arcturus, as one of the dramatis persona.-Spence, quoted by Warton,

403 Ceci est encore pratiqué près de Trani dans la Pouille, où l'on fait d'excellent vin muscat.-. -De Lille.

And some are found, who ponderous fragments spread, Large stones and tiles that press their loaded bed, Alike to guard against tempestuous rain,

410

415

Or shade when Sirius cleaves the thirsty plain.
The plants now fix'd, th' unwearied work pursue;
Oft round their shelter'd roots the soil renew,
Oft with laborious prongs the clods unbind,
And 'mid their ranks the struggling bullocks wind;
Then with light reed, peel'd osier's flexile spear,
Ash-pole, and forky stake, the vineyard rear,
Till the propt tendrils, train'd from stage to stage,
Crown the tall elm and brave the tempest's rage.
When the new leaf in Spring's luxuriant time
Clothes the young shoot, oh! spare its tender prime:
And when the gadding tendril wildly gay
Darts into air, and wantons on its way,

Indulgent yet the knife's keen edge forbear,
But nip the leaves, and lighten here and there.

421

But when in lusty strength th' o'er-shadowing vine 425
Clings with strong shoots that all the elm entwine,
Range with free steel, exert tyrannic sway,
Lop the rank bough, and curb th' exuberant spray.
Now weave the hedge, guard from stray herds the
ground,

Now, when the tender branch most feels the wound, 430
Not the fierce sun alone, and icy gale,

But savage buffaloes the shoots assail;

And persecuting goats devour the boughs,

And nibbling sheep and greedy heifers browse.
Yet, nor the rime by hoary winter shed,
Nor suns that scorch the mountain's arid head,

435

432 In the original urus, which Julius Cæsar describes as a wild bull, inhabiting the Hercynian wood, of prodigious strength and swiftness, and almost of the size of an elephant.

440

T

F

445

Hurt like the flock, whose venom'd teeth deface
The wounded bark, and scar the bleeding race.
For this the goat, that on the vineyard feeds,
Victim to Bacchus, on each altar bleeds:
For this the goat first crown'd the scenic song,
When round their hamlets roved th' Athenian throng,
And wild with joy and wine, in grassy plains
'Mid oily bladders leap'd the bounding swains.
Nor less Ausonian hinds, the race of Troy,
Sport in rude rhymes, and shout their tipsy joy;
Grim masks of bark deform the laughing band,
And, Bacchus! Bacchus! rings around the land:
While on the lofty pine his figure hung,
Floats to and fro the breezy boughs among.
Where'er the god his gracious front inclines,
There plenty gushes from the loaded vines,
Down richer vallies fragrant clusters breathe,
And hills grow dark their purple weight beneath.
Then pile the charger, hallow'd offerings bring;
Songs, that our fathers taught, to Bacchus sing:
Lead by the horns the goat, and, duly slain,
Slow roast on hazel spits before the fane.

450

455

G

the

Yet other cares remain, thy vines require

Exhaustless pains, and hands that never tire.
If turn'd the ground, thrice urge the yearly toil;

460

Break with bent prongs, and ceaseless work the

soil;

Strip all the leaves: so labor claims the swain,
And year on year wheels round his toils again.

439 Thespis, an Athenian poet, contemporary with Solon, is said to have invented tragedy, and to have carried his actors in a cart.

449 Spence, in his Polymetis, says that he was obliged to a gem in the Great Duke's collection at Florence for the understanding of the passage in Virgil which mentions the little heads of Bacchus suspended from trees.

E'en when at last the north has blown away
The lonely leaf that shiver'd on the spray,
Th' unwearied peasant, as his labor ends,
O'er all the coming year his care extends,

Prunes the bare vine, unblest with fruit, or shade,
And shapes its future growth beneath the blade.
First of the swains th' impatient furrow turn,
First of the swains the shoots superfluous burn,
And first beneath thy roof the props repose,

465

470

Last, strip thy vines at Autumn's ling'ring close.
Twice, countless leaves their loaded boughs o'ershade,
Weeds and wild brambles twice their beds invade: 476
If such the laborer's unremitting care,

Praise the large farm, but till thy scantier share;
Go, cut the broom that shoots along the wood,
And reeds and willows that o'erhang the flood.
At length the toil is o'er, the vines are bound,
The blunted knife lies idle on the ground;
Th' o'erwearied dresser sings in sweet repose
At the last rank where all his labors close;
Yet must he turn the soil, and dread lest Jove
Crush the ripe grapes, and waste the purple grove.
Not tortured thus to frail and feeble life,

The olive slowly grows beneath the knife,

When once her root has pierced the soil below,
Or genial breezes wanton'd round her brow.
Earth, loosen'd by the prong, the nursling feeds,
And fruit unstinted to the plough succeeds.
Then go, and, grateful for the blest increase,
With happiest culture rear the plant of peace.

Nor less, when once the vigorous scions rise,
Nature herself the orchard's growth supplies,
Gives with internal strength to dart in air,
And scorn the littleness of human care,

VIR.

VOL. I.

H

480

485

490

495

See, on each loaded grove wild fruitage grows,
In the deep wood the sanguine berry glows;
Th' unconquer'd cytisus, profuse of life,

500

Shoots from the wound, and buds beneath the knife;
Firs and tall pines throughout the livelong night
Feed the bright flame, and spread the cheerful light.
And doubts ungrateful man to plant the earth,
And tend on Nature teeming into birth?

Why on sublimer trees the lay prolong?
Willows and lowly broom demand the song;

505

Their leaves the cattle feed, the shepherd shade;
They load with sweets the bee, and fence the blade. 510
Gay waves with box Cytorus' breezy head,
Grateful the pines o'er dark Narycium spread.
How sweet to rove 'mid solitude and shade,

Where boundless Nature scorns all human aid!

E'en barren woods that crest Caucasean heights, 515 Woods whose shent brow th' unwearied whirlwind

smites,

Give pines that spread the canvass o'er the main,
Cedar and cypress that the dome sustain,
Form the swift spokes, and orb the solid wheel,
And cut the stormy brine with crooked keel.

501 Citysus Maranthæ.-Martyn.

520

Shrub-trefoil. Columella says the time for cutting it for hay is when its seeds begin to grow large; first dried in the sun, then thoroughly in the shade. It is used as fodder for goats in the Neapolitan territories, whence excellent cheese is made it bears cutting several times in the year. It afforded the Roman husbandman bloom for his bees, seed for his poultry, and shoots and leaves for his flocks.-Stawell.

511 Cytorus, according to Pliny, a mountain with a city of the same name in Paphlagonia.-Voss.

512 Naryx, a town of Magna Græcia.-Stawell.

515 Caucasus, a ridge of mountains running from the Black sea to the Caspian.-Martyn.