Page:The Farm and Fruit of Old a translation in verse of the 1st and 2nd Georgics of Virgil, by a market-gardener (1862).djvu/31

The meadows all with brimming fosses swim,
And mariners their dripping canvas trim.
No storm unwitting bursts: or if it sigh
Far down the glen, the cranes soar up the sky;
Or if in heaven, the heifer spies it there, 436
And opes her nostrils wide to snuff the air:
Or round the lake the twittering swallows scud,
And frogs croak grandam ditties in the mud.
Ofttimes the emmet from her snug abode 440
Brings out her eggs and plods a chary road:
The rainbow drinks its fill; the crows fly home,
With jostling wings the cawing squadrons come.
The different sea-birds and the birds that bore
The Asian marsh of sweet Caÿster's shore 445
With copious dews their bustling shoulders lave,
And duck their heads beneath the curling wave,
Then deeper still into the breakers dash,
And wanton in the luxury of splash.
But stalking lonely on the arid plain, 450
The sullen raven hoarsely croaks for rain.
Nor e'en the maids who ply their tasks at night
Have fail'd to read the coming storm aright,
Beholding now, upon the burning wick,
The lamp-oil splutter and the mushrooms stick.