While evil management its mischief brings:) Thus, if aërial Jove thy cares befriend, And crown thy tillage with a prosperous end, Shall the rich ear in fulness of its grain Nod on the stalk and bend it to the plain. So shalt thou sweep the spider’s films away, That round thy hollow bins lie hid from day: I ween, rejoicing in the foodful stores Obtain’d at length, and laid within thy doors: For plenteousness shall glad thee through the year Till the white blossoms of the spring appear: [93]Nor thou on others’ heaps a gazer be, But others owe their borrow’d store to thee. If, ill-advised, thou turn the genial plains His wintry tropic when the sun attains; Thou, then, may’st reap, and idle sit between: Mocking thy gripe the meagre stalks are seen: Whilst, little joyful, gather’st thou in bands The corn whose chaffy dust bestrews thy hands. In one scant basket shall thy harvest lie, [94]And few shall pass thee, then, with honouring eye. Now thus, now otherwise is Jove’s design; To men inscrutable the ways divine: But if thou late upturn the furrow’d field, One happy chance a remedy may yield. O’er the wide earth when men the cuckoo hear From spreading oak-leaves first delight their ear, Three days and nights let heaven in ceaseless rains Deep as thy ox’s hoof o’erflow the plains; So shall an equal crop thy time repair With his who earlier launch’d the shining share. Lay all to heart: nor let the blossom’d hours Of spring escape thee; nor the timely showers. Pass by [95]the brazier’s forge where loiterers meet, Nor saunter in the portico’s throng’d heat; When in the wintry season rigid cold Invades the limbs and binds them in its hold. Lo! then th’ industrious man with thriving store Improves his household management the more: And this do thou: lest intricate distress Of winter seize, and needy cares oppress: Lest, famine-smitten, thou, at length, be seen [96]To gripe thy tumid foot with hand from hunger lean. Pampering his empty hopes, yet needing food, On ill designs behold the idler brood: Sit in the crowded portico and feed On that ill hope, while starving with his need. Thou in mid-summer to thy labourers cry, [97]“Make now your nests,” for summer hours will fly. Beware the January month: beware Those hurtful days, that keenly piercing air Which flays the herds; [98]those frosts that bitter sheathe The nipping air and glaze the ground beneath. From Thracia, nurse of steeds, comes rushing forth, O’er the broad sea, the whirlwind of the north, And moves it with his breath: then howl the shores Of earth, and long and loud the forest roars. He lays the oaks of lofty foliage low, Tears the thick pine-trees from the mountains brow And strews the vallies with their overthrow.