Is driven along, and crackles in the wind. Whether from hence the hollow womb of earth Is warmed with secret strength for better birth; Or, when the latent vice is cured by fire, Redundant humours through the pores expire; Or that the warmth distends the chinks, and makes New breathings, whence new nourishment she takes; Or that the heat the gaping ground constrains, New knits the surface, and new strings the veins; Lest soaking showers should pierce her secret seat, } Or freezing Boreas chill her genial heat, } Or scorching suns too violently beat. } Nor is the profit small the peasant makes, Who smooths with harrows, or who pounds with rakes, The crumbling clods: nor Ceres from on high Regards his labours with a grudging eye; Nor his, who ploughs across the furrowed grounds, And on the back of earth inflicts new wounds; For he, with frequent exercise, commands The unwilling soil, and tames the stubborn lands. Ye swains, invoke the powers who rule the sky, For a moist summer, and a winter dry; For winter drought rewards the peasant's pain, And broods indulgent on the buried grain. Hence Mysia boasts her harvests, and the tops Of Gargarus admire their happy crops. When first the soil receives the fruitful seed, Make no delay, but cover it with speed: So fenced from cold, the pliant furrows break, Before the surly clod resists the rake; And call the floods from high, to rush amain With pregnant streams, to swell the teeming grain. Then, when the fiery suns too fiercely play, And shrivelled herbs on withering stems decay, The wary ploughman, on the mountain's brow, Undams his watery stores--huge torrents flow, And, rattling down the rocks, large moisture yield, Tempering the thirsty fever of the field-- And, lest the stem, too feeble for the freight, Should scarce sustain the head's unwieldy weight, Sends in his feeding flocks betimes, to invade The rising bulk of the luxuriant blade, Ere yet the aspiring offspring of the grain O'ertops the ridges of the furrowed plain; And drains the standing waters, when they yield Too large a beverage to the drunken field: But most in autumn, and the showery spring, When dubious months uncertain weather bring; When fountains open, when impetuous rain Swells hasty brooks, and pours upon the plain; When earth with slime and mud is covered o'er, Or hollow places spew their watery store. Nor yet the ploughman, nor the labouring steer, Sustain alone the hazards of the year: But glutton geese, and the Strymonian crane, With foreign troops invade the tender grain; And towering weeds malignant shadows yield; And spreading succory chokes the rising field. The sire of gods and men, with hard decrees, Forbids our plenty to be bought with ease, And wills that mortal men, inured to toil, Should exercise, with pains, the grudging soil;