Large is the plant, and like a laurel grows, And, did it not a different scent disclose, A laurel were: the fragrant flowers contemn The stormy winds, tenacious of their stem. With this, the Medes to labouring age bequeath New lungs, and cure the sourness of the breath. But neither Median woods, (a plenteous land,) Fair Ganges, Hermus rolling golden sand, Nor Bactria, nor the richer Indian fields, Nor all the gummy stores Arabia yields, Nor any foreign earth of greater name, } Can with sweet Italy contend in fame. } No bulls, whose nostrils breathe a living flame, } Have turned our turf; no teeth of serpents here Were sown, an armed host and iron crop to bear. But fruitful vines, and the fat olive's freight, And harvests heavy with their fruitful weight, Adorn our fields; and on the cheerful green The grazing flocks and lowing herds are seen. The warrior horse, here bred, is taught to train: There flows Clitumnus through the flowery plain, Whose waves, for triumphs after prosperous war, The victim ox and snowy sheep prepare. Perpetual spring our happy climate sees: } Twice breed the cattle, and twice bear the trees; } And summer suns recede by slow degrees. } Our land is from the rage of tigers freed, Nor nourishes the lion's angry seed; Nor poisonous aconite is here produced, Or grows unknown, or is, when known, refused; Nor in so vast a length our serpents glide, Or raised on such a spiry volume ride. Next add our cities of illustrious name, Their costly labour, and stupendous frame; Our forts on steepy hills, that far below See wanton streams in winding valleys flow; Our twofold seas, that, washing either side, A rich recruit of foreign stores provide; Our spacious lakes; thee, Larius, first; and next Benacus, with tempestuous billows vexed. Or shall I praise thy ports, or mention make Of the vast mound that binds the Lucrine lake? Or the disdainful sea, that, shut from thence, Roars round the structure, and invades the fence, There, where secure the Julian waters glide, Or where Avernus' jaws admit the Tyrrhene tide? Our quarries, deep in earth, were famed of old For veins of silver, and for ore of gold. The inhabitants themselves their country grace: Hence rose the Marsian and Sabellian race, Strong-limbed and stout, and to the wars inclined, And hard Ligurians, a laborious kind, And Volscians armed with iron-headed darts. Besides--an offspring of undaunted hearts-- The Decii, Marii, great Camillus, came From hence, and greater Scipio's double name, And mighty Cæsar, whose victorious arms To farthest Asia carry fierce alarms, Avert unwarlike Indians from his Rome, Triumph abroad, secure our peace at home. Hail, sweet Saturnian soil! of fruitful grain Great parent, greater of illustrious men!