And use thyself betimes to hear and grant our prayers. } While yet the spring is young, while earth unbinds Her frozen bosom to the western winds; While mountain snows dissolve against the sun, And streams, yet new, from precipices run; Even in this early dawning of the year, Produce the plough, and yoke the sturdy steer, And goad him till he groans beneath his toil, Till the bright share is buried in the soil. That crop rewards the greedy peasant's pains, } Which twice the sun, and twice the cold sustains, } And bursts the crowded barns with more than promised gains. } But, ere we stir the yet unbroken ground, The various course of seasons must be found; The weather, and the setting of the winds, The culture suiting to the several kinds Of seeds and plants, and what will thrive and rise, And what the genius of the soil denies. This ground with Bacchus, that with Ceres, suits: That other loads the trees with happy fruits: A fourth, with grass unbidden, decks the ground. Thus Tmolus is with yellow saffron crowned: India black ebon and white ivory bears; And soft Idume weeps her odorous tears Thus Pontus sends her beaver-stones from far; And naked Spaniards temper steel for war: Epirus, for the Elean chariot, breeds (In hopes of palms) a race of running steeds. This is th' original contract; these the laws Imposed by Nature, and by Nature's cause, On sundry places, when Deucalion hurled His mother's entrails on the desert world; Whence men, a hard laborious kind, were born. } Then borrow part of winter for thy corn; } And early, with thy team, the glebe in furrows turn; } That, while the turf lies open and unbound, Succeeding suns may bake the mellow ground. But, if the soil be barren, only scar The surface, and but lightly print the share, When cold Arcturus rises with the sun; Lest wicked weeds the corn should over-run In watery soils; or lest the barren sand Should suck the moisture from the thirsty land. Both these unhappy soils the swain forbears, And keeps a sabbath of alternate years, That the spent earth may gather heart again, And, bettered by cessation, bear the grain. At least where vetches, pulse, and tares, have stood, And stalks of lupines grew, (a stubborn wood,) The ensuing season, in return, may bear The bearded product of the golden year:[5] For flax and oats will burn the tender field, And sleepy poppies harmful harvests yield. But sweet vicissitudes of rest and toil Make easy labour, and renew the soil. Yet sprinkle sordid ashes all around, And load with fattening dung thy fallow ground. Thus change of seeds for meagre soils is best; And earth manured, not idle, though at rest. Long practice has a sure improvement found, With kindled fires to burn the barren ground, When the light stubble, to the flames resigned,