E’re yet the barbarous thirst of blood had seiz’d The human breast. Each rolling month matures The food that suits it most; so does each clime. 300 Far in the horrid realms of winter, where Th’ establish’d ocean heaps a monstrous waste Of shining rocks and mountains to the pole; There lives a hardy race, whose plainest wants Relentless earth, their cruel step-mother, 305 Regards not. On the waste of iron fields, Untam’d, untractable, no harvests wave: Pomona hates them, and the clownish God Who tends the garden. In this frozen world Such cooling gifts were vain: a fitter meal 310 Is earn’d with ease; for here the fruitful spawn Of Ocean swarms, and heaps their genial board With generous fare and luxury profuse. These are their bread, the only bread they know; These, and their willing slave the deer, that crops 315 The shrubby herbage on their meager hills. Girt by the burning zone, not thus the south Her swarthy sons, in either Ind, maintains: Or thirsty Lybia; from whose fervid loins The lion bursts, and every fiend that roams 320 Th’ affrighted wilderness. The mountain herd, Adust and dry, no sweet repast affords; Nor does the tepid main such kinds produce, So perfect, so delicious, as the stores Of icy Zembla. Rashly where the blood 325 Brews feverish frays; where scarce the tubes sustain Its tumid fervor and tempestuous course; Kind nature tempts not to such gifts as these. But here in livid ripeness melts the grape; Here, finish’d by invigorating suns, 330 Thro’ the green shade the golden Orange glows; Spontaneous here the turgid Melon yields A generous pulp; the Coco swells on high With milky riches; and in horrid mail The soft Ananas wraps its tender sweets. 335 Earth’s vaunted progeny: In ruder air Too coy to flourish, even to proud to live; Or hardly rais’d by artificial fire To vapid life. Here with a mother’s smile Glad Amalthea pours her copious horn. 340 Here buxom Ceres reigns: Th’ autumnal sea In boundless billows fluctuates o’er their plains. What suits the climate best, what suits the men, Nature profuses most, and most the taste Demands. The fountain, edg’d with racy wine 345 Or acid fruit, bedews their thirsty souls. The breeze eternal breathing round their limbs Supports in else intolerable air: While the cool Palm, the Plantain, and the grove That waves on gloomy Lebanon, assuage 350 The torrid hell that beams upon their heads.