36
THE FARM AND
With bow in hand, and quiver on his back. 150
The kindly citron Media doth produce,
Of clammy savour and of acrid juice;
No medicine hath more sovereign control,
When fell stepmothers drug the murder bowl,
And mingle herbs of death and glamour strains—
The citron scours their poison from the veins:
The tree is huge, and like a bay in frame,
And, if the scent it scatters was the same,
A bay it were; the leaves defy the blast,
And stedfast clings the blossom to the last. 160
Herewith the Medes their lips and breath perfume,
And save asthmatic grandsires from the tomb.
But neither Median woods of wealth untold,
Nor Ganges fair, nor Hermus red with gold,
With Italy may vie; nor Bactrian grain, 165
Nor Ind, nor Sheba sleek with spicy plain.
Our land no bulls, with snorted fire for breath,
Have plough'd, no dragon's teeth have sown with death:
No harvest barb'd with helmet and with spear—
Our rank and file the serried wheaten ear, 170
Our bloodshed but the Massic vineyard's flow,
Where olives reign and bevied cattle low.
The kindly citron Media doth produce,
Of clammy savour and of acrid juice;
No medicine hath more sovereign control,
When fell stepmothers drug the murder bowl,
And mingle herbs of death and glamour strains—
The citron scours their poison from the veins:
The tree is huge, and like a bay in frame,
And, if the scent it scatters was the same,
A bay it were; the leaves defy the blast,
And stedfast clings the blossom to the last. 160
Herewith the Medes their lips and breath perfume,
And save asthmatic grandsires from the tomb.
But neither Median woods of wealth untold,
Nor Ganges fair, nor Hermus red with gold,
With Italy may vie; nor Bactrian grain, 165
Nor Ind, nor Sheba sleek with spicy plain.
Our land no bulls, with snorted fire for breath,
Have plough'd, no dragon's teeth have sown with death:
No harvest barb'd with helmet and with spear—
Our rank and file the serried wheaten ear, 170
Our bloodshed but the Massic vineyard's flow,
Where olives reign and bevied cattle low.
