“Yet nor the Median groves, nor rivers, rolled, Ganges, and Hermus, o’er their beds of gold, Nor Ind, nor Bactra, nor the blissful land Where incense spreads o’er rich Panchaia’s sand, Nor all that fancy paints in fabled lays, O native Italy! transcend thy praise. Though here no bulls beneath the enchanted yoke With fiery nostril o’er the furrow smoke, No hydra teeth embattled harvest yield, Spear and bright helmet bristling o’er the field; Yet golden corn each laughing valley fills, The vintage reddens on a thousand hills, Luxuriant olives spread from shore to shore, And flocks unnumbered range the pastures o’er. Hence the proud war-horse rushes on the foe, Clitumnus! hence thy herds, more white than snow, And stately bull, that, of gigantic size, Supreme of victims, on the altar lies, Bathed in thy sacred stream oft led the train When Rome in pomp of triumph deck’d the fane. Here Spring perpetual leads the laughing Hours, And Winter wears a wreath of summer flowers: The o’erloaded branch twice fills with fruits the year, And twice the teeming flocks their offspring rear. Yet here no lion breeds, no tiger strays, No tempting aconite the touch betrays, No monstrous snake the uncoiling volume trails, Or gathers orb on orb his iron scales. But many a peopled city towers around, And many a rocky cliff with castle crowned, And many an antique wall whose hoary brow O’ershades the flood that guards its base below. All hail, Saturnian earth! hail, loved of fame, Land, rich in fruits and men of mighty name! For thee I dare the sacred founts explore, For thee, the rules of ancient art restore, Themes once to glory raised again rehearse, And pour through Roman towns the Ascræan verse.” SOTHEBY. The raising of cattle and the management of bees form the subjects of the remaining books of the Georgics. THE ÆNEID narrates in epic verse the adventures of Æneas, the legendary ancestor of the Romans. Virgil sums up his plot in the opening lines:— “Arms and the man I sing, who first, By Fate of Ilian realm amerced, To fair Italia onward bore, And landed on Lavinium’s shore:— Long tossing earth and ocean o’er, By violence of heaven, to sate Fell Juno’s unforgetting hate: Much labored too in battle-field, Striving his city’s walls to build, And give his Gods a home. Thence come the hardy Latin brood, The ancient sires of Alba’s blood, And lofty-rampired Rome.”