Of oyster-rife Abydos. When the Scales Now poising fair the hours of sleep and day Give half the world to sunshine, half to shade, Then urge your bulls, my masters; sow the plain Even to the verge of tameless winter's showers With barley: then, too, time it is to hide Your flax in earth, and poppy, Ceres' joy, Aye, more than time to bend above the plough, While earth, yet dry, forbids not, and the clouds Are buoyant. With the spring comes bean-sowing; Thee, too, Lucerne, the crumbling furrows then Receive, and millet's annual care returns, What time the white bull with his gilded horns Opens the year, before whose threatening front, Routed the dog-star sinks. But if it be For wheaten harvest and the hardy spelt, Thou tax the soil, to corn-ears wholly given, Let Atlas' daughters hide them in the dawn, The Cretan star, a crown of fire, depart, Or e'er the furrow's claim of seed thou quit, Or haste thee to entrust the whole year's hope To earth that would not. Many have begun Ere Maia's star be setting; these, I trow, Their looked-for harvest fools with empty ears. But if the vetch and common kidney-bean Thou'rt fain to sow, nor scorn to make thy care Pelusiac lentil, no uncertain sign Bootes' fall will send thee; then begin, Pursue thy sowing till half the frosts be done. Therefore it is the golden sun, his course Into fixed parts dividing, rules his way Through the twelve constellations of the world. Five zones the heavens contain; whereof is one Aye red with flashing sunlight, fervent aye From fire; on either side to left and right Are traced the utmost twain, stiff with blue ice, And black with scowling storm-clouds, and betwixt These and the midmost, other twain there lie, By the Gods' grace to heart-sick mortals given, And a path cleft between them, where might wheel On sloping plane the system of the Signs. And as toward Scythia and Rhipaean heights The world mounts upward, likewise sinks it down Toward Libya and the south, this pole of ours Still towering high, that other, 'neath their feet, By dark Styx frowned on, and the abysmal shades. Here glides the huge Snake forth with sinuous coils 'Twixt the two Bears and round them river-wise- The Bears that fear 'neath Ocean's brim to dip. There either, say they, reigns the eternal hush Of night that knows no seasons, her black pall Thick-mantling fold on fold; or thitherward From us returning Dawn brings back the day; And when the first breath of his panting steeds On us the Orient flings, that hour with them Red Vesper 'gins to trim his his 'lated fires. Hence under doubtful skies forebode we can The coming tempests, hence both harvest-day And seed-time, when to smite the treacherous main With driving oars, when launch the fair-rigged fleet, Or in ripe hour to fell the forest-pine. Hence, too, not idly do we watch the stars- Their rising and their setting-and the year, Four varying seasons to one law conformed. If chilly showers e'er shut the farmer's door,