If fiery red his glowing globe descends,
High winds and furious tempests he portends:
But, if his cheeks are swoln with livid blue,
He bodes wet weather by his watery hue:
If dusky spots are varied on his brow,
And, streaked with red, a troubled colour show;
That sullen mixture shall at once declare
Winds, rain, and storms, and elemental war.
What desperate madman then would venture o'er
The frith, or haul his cables from the shore?
But, if with purple rays he brings the light,
And a pure heaven resigns to quiet night,
No rising winds, or falling storms, are nigh;
But northern breezes through the forest fly,
And drive the rack, and purge the ruffled sky.
The unerring sun by certain signs declares,
What the late even or early morn prepares,
And when the south projects a stormy day,
And when the clearing north will puff the clouds
The sun reveals the secrets of the sky;
And who dares give the source of light the lie?
The change of empires often he declares,
Fierce tumults, hidden treasons, open wars.
He first the fate of Cæsar did foretell,
And pitied Rome, when Rome in Cæsar fell;
In iron clouds concealed the public light,
And impious mortals feared eternal night.
Nor was the fact foretold by him alone,Nature herself stood forth, and seconded the sun. Earth, air, and seas, with prodigies were signed; And birds obscene, and howling dogs, divined. What rocks did Ætna's bellowing mouth expire From her torn entrails! and what floods of fire! What clanks were heard, in German skies afar, Of arms, and armies rushing to the war!
Dire earthquakes rent the solid Alps below,
And from their summits shook the eternal snow;
Pale spectres in the close of night were seen,
And voices heard, of more than mortal men,
In silent groves: dumb sheep and oxen spoke;
And streams ran backward, and their beds forsook:
The yawning earth disclosed the abyss of hell,
The weeping statues did the wars foretell,
And holy sweat from brazen idols fell.
Then, rising in his might, the king of floods.
Rushed through the forests, tore the lofty woods,
And, rolling onward, with a sweepy sway,
Bore houses, herds, and labouring hinds away.
Blood sprang from wells, wolves howled in towns by
night,
And boding victims did the priests affright.
Such peals of thunder never poured from high,
Nor forky lightnings flashed from such a sullen sky.
Red meteors ran across the etherial space;
Stars disappeared, and comets took their place.
Forthis, the Emathian plains once more were strowed
With Roman bodies, and just heaven thought good
To fatten twice those fields with Roman blood.
Then, after length of time, the labouring swains,
Who turn the turfs of those unhappy plains,
Shall rusty piles from the ploughed furrows take,
And over empty helmets pass the rake—
Amazed at antique titles on the stones,
And mighty reliques of gigantic bones.
Ye home-born deities, of mortal birth!
Thou father Romulus, and mother Earth,
Goddess unmoved! whose guardian arms extend
O'er Tuscan Tyber's course, and Roman towers de-
With youthful Cæsar your joint powers engage,
Nor hinder him to save the sinking age.
O let the blood, already spilt, atone
For the past crimes of cursed Laomedon!
Heaven wants thee there; and long the gods, we know,
Have grudged thee, Cæsar, to the world below,
Where fraud and rapine right and wrong confound,
Where impious arms from every part resound,
And monstrous crimes in every shape are crowned.
The peaceful peasant to the wars is pressed;
The fields lie fallow in inglorious rest;
The plain no pasture to the flock affords;
The crooked scythes are straightened 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 shews 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 out 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.
*The Praises of Italy, (translated by the learned and every way excellent Mr Chetwood,) which are printed in one of my Miscellany Poems, are the greatest ornament of this book: wherein, for want of sufficient skill in gardening, agriculture, &c. I may possibly be mistaken in some terms. But, concerning grafting, my honoured friend Sir William Bowyer has assured me, that Virgil
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 inclosed 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 sheltered by the mother's boughs.
These ways of planting Nature did ordain,
For trees and shrubs, and all the sylvan reign.
Others there are, by late experience found:
Some cut the shoots, and plant in furrowed ground;
has shewn more of poetry than skill, at least in relation to our more northern climates; and that many of our stocks will not receive such grafts as our poet tells us would bear in Italy. Nature has conspired with art to make the garden at Denham Court, of Sir William's own plantation, one of the most delicious spots of ground in England: it contains not above five acres (just the compass of Alcinous's garden, described in the Odysses :) but Virgil says, in this very Georgic,
|