The peaceful peasant to the wars is press'd;
The fields lie fallow in inglorious rest;
The plain no pasture to the flock affords ;
The crooked scythes are straighten'd into swords:
And there Euphrates her soft offspring arms,
And here the Rhine rebellows with alarms;
The neighbouring cities range on several sides;
Perfidious Mars long-plighted leagues divides,
And o'er the wasted world in triumph rides.
So four fierce coursers, starting to the race,
Scour through the plain, and lengthen every pace;
Nor reins, nor curbs, nor threatening cries, they fear,
But force along the trembling charioteer.
The subject of the following book is planting: in handling of which argument, the poet shows all the different methods of raising trees, describes their variety, and gives rules for the management of each in particular. He then points out the soils in which the several plants thrive best, and thence takes occasion to run ont into the praises of Italy: after which he gives some directions for discovering the nature of every soil, prescribes rules for dressing of vines, olives, &c. and concludes the Georgic with a panegyric on a country life.
THUS far of tillage, and of heavenly signs:
Now sing, my Muse, the growth of generous vines,
The shady groves, the woodland progeny,
And the slow product of Minerva's tree.
Great father Bacchus! to my song repair;
For clustering grapes are thy peculiar care:
For thee, large bunches load the bending vine
And the last blessings of the year are thine.
To thee his joys the jolly Autumn owes,
When the fermenting juice the vat o'erflows.
Come, strip with me, my god! come drench all o'er
Thy limbs in must of wine, and drink at every pore.
Some trees their birth to bounteous Nature owe;
For some, without the pains of planting, grow.
With osiers thus the banks of brooks abound,
Sprung from the watery genius of the ground.
From the same principles grey willows come,
Herculean poplar and the tender broom.
But some, from seeds inclos'd in earth, arise;
For thus the mastful chesnut mates the skies.
Hence rise the branching beech and vocal oak,
Where Jove of old oraculously spoke.
Some from the root a rising wood disclose :
Thus elms, and thus the savage cherry grows :
Thus the green bay, that binds the poet's brows,
Shoots, and is shelter'd by the mother's boughs.
These ways of planting Nature did ordain,
For trees and shrubs, and all the silvan reign.
Others there are, by late experience found:
Some cut the shoots, and plant in furrow'd ground;
Some cover rooted stalks in deeper mould;
Some, cloven-stakes; and (wondrous to behold!)
Their sharpen'd ends in earth their footing place;
And the dry poles produce a living race.
Some bow their vines, which buried in the plain,
Their tops in distant arches rise again.
Others no root require; the labourer cuts
Young slips, and in the soil securely puts.
E'en stumps of olives, bar'd of leaves, and dead,
Revive, and oft redeem their wither'd head.
'Tis usual now an inmate graff to see
With insolence invade a foreign tree :
Thus pears and quinces from the crabtree come; And thus the ruddy cornel bears the plum.
Then let the learned gardener mark with care
The kinds of stocks, and what those kinds will bear;
Explore the nature of each several tree,
And, known, improve with artful industry :
And let no spot of idle earth be found;
But cultivate the genius of the ground:
For open Ismarus will Bacchus please;
Taburnus loves the shade of olive-trees.
The virtues of the several soils I sing.-
Mæcenas, now thy needful succour bring!
O thou! the better part of my renown,
Inspire thy poet, and thy poem crowu:
Embark with me, while I new tracts explore,
With flying sails and breezes from the shore:
Not that my song, in such a scanty space,
So large a subject fully can embrace-
Not though I were supplied with iron lungs,
A hundred mouths, fill'd with as many tongues :
But steer my vessel with a steady hand,
And coast along the shore in sight of land.
Nor will I tire thy patience with a train
Of preface, or what ancient poets feign.
The trees, which of themselves advance in air,
Are barren kinds, but strongly built and fair,
Because the vigour of the native earth
Maintains the plant, and makes a manly birth.
Yet these, receiving grafts of other kind,
Or thence transplanted, change their savage mind,
Their wildness lose, and, quitting nature's part,
Obey the rules and discipline of art.
The same do trees, that, sprung from barren roots,
In open fields transplanted bear their fruits.
For, where they grow, the native energy
Turns all into the substance of the tree,
Starves and destroys the fruit, is only made
For brawny bulk, and for a barren shade.
The plant that shoots from seed, a sullen tree,
At leisure grows, for late posterity;
The generous flavour lost, the fruits decay,
And savage grapes are made the bird's ignoble prey.
Much labour is requir'd in trees, to tame
Their wild disorder, and in ranks reclaim.
Well must the ground be digg'd, and better dress'd,
New soil to make, and meliorate the rest.
Old stakes of olive-trees in plants revive;
By the same method Paphian myrtles live:
But nobler vines by propagation thrive.
From roots hard hazels, and from cions rise;
Tall ash, and taller oak that mates the skies;
Palm, poplar, fir, descending from the steep
Of hills, to try the dangers of the deep,
The thin-leav'd arbute hazel-graffs receives;
And planes huge apples bear, that bore but leaves.
Thus mastful beech the bristly chesnut bears,
And the wild ash is white with blooming pears,
And greedy swine from grafted elms are fed
With falling acorns, that on oaks are bred.
But various are the ways to change the state
Of plants, to bud, to graff, to inoculate.
For, where the tender rinds of trees disclose
Their shooting gems, a swelling knot there grows :
Just in that space a narrow slit we make;
Then other buds from bearing trees we take;
Inserted thus, the wounded rind we close,
In whose moist womb the' admitted infant grows.
But, when the smoother bole from knots is free,
We make a deep incision in the tree,
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