GEORGIC I
What makes the cornfield smile; beneath what star Maecenas, it is
meet to turn the sod Or marry elm with vine; how tend the steer; What
pains for cattle-keeping, or what proof Of patient trial serves for thrifty
bees;- Such are my themes. O universal
lights Most glorious! ye that lead the gliding year Along the sky, Liber and
Ceres mild, If by your bounty holpen earth once changed Chaonian acorn
for the plump wheat-ear, And mingled with the grape, your new-found gift,
The draughts of Achelous; and ye Fauns To rustics ever kind, come foot it,
Fauns And Dryad-maids together; your gifts I sing. And thou, for whose
delight the war-horse first Sprang from earth\'s womb at thy great trident\'s
stroke, Neptune; and haunter of the groves, for whom Three hundred
snow-white heifers browse the brakes, The fertile brakes of Ceos; and
clothed in power, Thy native forest and Lycean lawns, Pan, shepherd-god,
forsaking, as the love Of thine own Maenalus constrains thee, hear And
help, O lord of Tegea! And thou, too, Minerva, from whose hand the olive
sprung; And boy-discoverer of the curved plough; And, bearing a young
cypress root-uptorn, Silvanus, and Gods all and Goddesses, Who make the
fields your care, both ye who nurse The tender unsown increase, and from
heaven Shed on man\'s sowing the riches of your rain: And thou, even thou,
of whom we know not yet What mansion of the skies shall hold thee soon,
Whether to watch o\'er cities be thy will, Great Caesar, and to take the earth
in charge, That so the mighty world may welcome thee Lord of her
increase, master of her times, Binding thy mother\'s myrtle round thy brow,
Or as the boundless ocean\'s God thou come, Sole dread of seamen, till far
Thule bow Before thee, and Tethys win thee to her son With all her waves
for dower; or as a star Lend thy fresh beams our lagging months to cheer,
Where \'twixt the Maid and those pursuing Claws A space is opening; see!
red Scorpio\'s self His arms draws in, yea, and hath left thee more Than thy
full meed of heaven: be what thou wilt- For neither Tartarus hopes to call
thee king, Nor may so dire a lust of sovereignty E\'er light upon thee,