6
THE FARM AND
Or if thereby the soil's constituents breed
Mysterious vigour and nutritious feed;
Or if, by purging of the fire, they lose 100
Injurious properties and worthless ooze;
Or if the heat opes passages and pores
Unseen, whose moisture meets the tender spores;
Or if it hardens and contracts the veins,
That gape too widely; lest the prying rains, 105
Or beating sunglare fiercely shed around,
Or winter's searching frost consumes the ground.
So then, by crushing idle clods, the swain
With harrow and bush-harrow glads the plain,
Nor void of sympathy doth Ceres fair 110
Look down from heaven betwixt her golden hair:
Nor vain his work who cuts the straight rig's chine,
With plough set crossways to his former line,
Slashes the hummocks left by Autumn's toil,
Exerts the land, and lords it o'er the soil. 115
For winters dry, and showery summers, pray;
The dust of winter makes the cornland gay:
'Tis this so proudly decks the Mysian wold,
And Gargara startled at his crown of gold. 119
And what of him who, having sown the grain,
Mysterious vigour and nutritious feed;
Or if, by purging of the fire, they lose 100
Injurious properties and worthless ooze;
Or if the heat opes passages and pores
Unseen, whose moisture meets the tender spores;
Or if it hardens and contracts the veins,
That gape too widely; lest the prying rains, 105
Or beating sunglare fiercely shed around,
Or winter's searching frost consumes the ground.
So then, by crushing idle clods, the swain
With harrow and bush-harrow glads the plain,
Nor void of sympathy doth Ceres fair 110
Look down from heaven betwixt her golden hair:
Nor vain his work who cuts the straight rig's chine,
With plough set crossways to his former line,
Slashes the hummocks left by Autumn's toil,
Exerts the land, and lords it o'er the soil. 115
For winters dry, and showery summers, pray;
The dust of winter makes the cornland gay:
'Tis this so proudly decks the Mysian wold,
And Gargara startled at his crown of gold. 119
And what of him who, having sown the grain,
