Part V

Bleak is the morn, when blows the north from high;
Oft when the dawnlight paints the starry sky,
A misty cloud suspended hovers o’er
Heaven’s blessed earth with fertilizing store
Drain’d from the living streams: aloft in air
The whirling winds the buoyant vapour bear,
Resolved at eve in rain or gusty cold,
As by the north the troubled rack is roll’d.
Preventing this, the labour of the day
Accomplish’d, homeward bend thy hastening way:
Lest the dark cloud, with whelming rush deprest,
Drench thy cold limbs and soak thy dripping vest.

This winter-month with prudent caution fear:
Severe to flocks, nor less to men severe:
Feed thy keen husbandman with larger bread:
With half their provender thy steers be fed:
Them rest assists: the night’s protracted length
Recruits their vigour and supplies their strength.
This rule observe, while still the various earth
Gives every fruit and kindly seedling birth:
Still to the toil proportionate the cheer,
The day to night, and equalize the year.

When from the wintry tropic of the sun
Full sixty days their finish’d round have run,
Lo! then the sacred deep Arcturus leave,
First whole-apparent on the verge of eve.
Through the grey dawn the swallow lifts her wing,
Morn-plaining bird, the harbinger of spring.

Anticipate the time: the care be thine
An earlier day to prune the shooting vine.
When the house-bearing snail is slowly found
To shun the Pleiad heats that scorch the ground,
And climb the plant’s tall stem, insist no more
To dress the vine, but give the vineyard o’er.
Whet the keen sickle, hasten every swain,
From shady booths, from morning sleep refrain;
Now, in the fervour of the harvest-day,
When the strong sun dissolves the frame away:
Now haste a-field: now bind thy sheafy corn,
And earn thy food by rising with the morn.
Lo! the third portion of thy labour’s cares
The early morn anticipating shares:
In early morn the labour swiftly wastes:
In early morn the speeded journey hastes;
The time when many a traveller tracks the plain,
And the yoked oxen bend them to the wain.
When the green artichoke ascending flowers,
When, in the sultry season’s toilsome hours,
Perch’d on a branch, beneath his veiling wings
The loud cicada shrill and frequent sings:
Then the plump goat a savoury food bestows,
The poignant wine in mellowest flavour flows:
Wanton the blood then bounds in woman’s veins,
But weak of man the heat-enfeebled reins:
Full on his brain descends the solar flame
Unnerves the languid knees, and all the frame
Exhaustive dries away: oh then be thine
To sit in shade of rocks; with Byblian wine,
And goat’s milk, stinted from the kid, to slake
Thy thirst, and eat the shepherd’s creamy cake;
The flesh of new-dropt kids and youngling cows,
That, never teeming, cropp’d the forest browse.
With dainty food so saturate thy soul,
And drink the wine dark-mantling in the bowl:
While in the cool and breezy gloom reclined
Thy face is turn’d to catch the breathing wind;
And feel the freshening brook, whose living stream
Glides at thy foot with clear and sparkling gleam:
Three parts its waters in thy cup should flow,
The fourth with brimming wine may mingled glow.

When first Orion’s beamy strength is born,
Let then thy labourers thresh the sacred corn:
Smooth be the level floor, on gusty ground,
Where winnowing gales may sweep in eddies round.
Hoard in thy ample bins the meted grain:
And now, as I advise, thy hireling swain
From forth thy house dismiss, when all the store
Of kindly food is laid within thy door:
And to thy service let a female come;
But childless, for a child were burthensome.
Keep, too, a sharp-tooth’d dog, nor thrifty spare
To feed his fierceness high with generous fare:
Lest the day-slumbering thief thy nightly door
Wakeful besiege, and pilfer from thy store.
For ox and mule the yearly fodder lay
Within thy loft; the heapy straw and hay:
This care dispatch’d, refresh the bending knees
Of thy tired hinds, and give thy unyoked oxen ease.

When Sirius and Orion the mid-sky
Ascend, and on Arcturus looks from high
The rosy-finger’d morn, the vintage calls:
Then bear the gather’d grapes within thy walls.
Ten days and nights exposed the clusters lay
Bask’d in the lustre of each mellowing day:
Let five their circling round successive run,
Whilst lie thy frails o’ershaded from the sun:
The sixth in vats the gifts of Bacchus press;
Of Bacchus gladdening earth with store of pleasantness.

But when beneath the skies on morning’s brink
The Pleiads, Hyads, and Orion sink;
Know then the ploughing and the seed-time near:
Thus well-disposed shall glide thy rustic year.

But if thy breast with nautical desire
The perilous deep’s uncertain gains inspire,
When chased by strong Orion down the heaven
Sink the seven stars in gloomy ocean driven;
Then varying winds in gustful eddies roar:
Then to black ocean trust thy ships no more:
But heedful care to this my caution yield,
And, as I bid thee, labour safe the field.
Hale on firm land the ship: with stones made fast
Against the staggering force of humid-blowing blast:
Draw from its keel the peg, lest rotting rain
Suck’d in the hollow of the hold remain:
Within thy house the tackling order’d be.
And furl thy vessel’s wings that skimm’d the sea:
The well-framed rudder in the smoke suspend,
And calm and navigable seas attend.
Then launch the rapid bark: fit cargo load,
And freighted rich repass the liquid road.
Oh witness Perses! thus for honest gain,
Thus did our mutual father plough the main.
Erst, from Æolian Cuma’s distant shore,
Hither in sable ship his course he bore;
Through the wide seas his venturous way he took;
No rich revenues; prosperous ease forsook:
His wandering course from poverty began,
The visitation sent from heaven to man:
Ascra’s sad hamlet he his dwelling chose
Where nigh impending Helicon arose:
In summer irksome and in winter drear,
Nor ever genial through the joyless year.

Each labour, Perses! let the seasons guide:
But o’er thy navigation chief preside:
Decline a slender bark: intrust thy freight
To the strong vessel of a larger rate:
The larger cargo doubles every gain,
Let but the winds their adverse blasts restrain.
If thy rash thoughts on merchandise be placed,
Lest debts ensnare or joyless hunger waste,
Learn now the courses of the roaring sea,
Though ships and voyages are strange to me.
Ne’er o’er the sea’s broad way my course I bore
Save once from Aulis to th’ Eubœan shore:
From Aulis, where the Greeks in days of yore,
The winds awaiting, kept the harbouring shore:
From sacred Greece a mighty army there
Lay bound for Troy, wide famed for women fair.
I pass’d to Chalcis, where around the grave
Of king Amphidamus, in combat brave,
His valiant sons had solemn games decreed,
And heralds loud proclaim’d full many a meed:
There, let me boast, that victor in the lay
I bore a tripod ear’d, my prize, away:
This to the maids of Helicon I vow’d
Where first their tuneful inspiration flow’d.
Thus far in ships does my experience rise;
Yet bold I speak the wisdom of the skies;
Th’ inspiring Muses to my lips have given
The lore of song, and strains that breathe of heaven.
When from the summer-tropic fifty days
Have roll’d, when summer’s time of toil decays:
Then is the season fair to spread the sail:
Nor then thy ship shall founder in the gale
And seas o’erwhelm the crew: unless the Power,
Who shakes the shores with waves, have will’d their mortal hour:
Or he th’ immortals’ king require their breath,
Whose hands the issues hold of life and death
For good and evil men: but now the seas
Are dangerless, and clear the calmy breeze.
Then trust the winds, and let thy vessel sweep
With all her freight the level of the deep.
But rapidly retrace thy homeward way
Nor till the season of new wine delay:
Late autumn’s torrent showers: bleak winter’s sweep:
The south-blast ruffling strong the tossing deep:
When air comes rushing in autumnal rain,
And curls with many a ridge the troubled main.
Men, too, may sail in spring: when first the crow
Imprinting with light steps the sands below,
As many thinly-scatter’d leaves are seen
To clothe the fig-tree’s top with tender green.
This vernal voyage practicable seems,
And pervious are the boundless ocean-streams:
I praise it not: for thou with anxious mind
Must hasty snatch th’ occasion of the wind.
The drear event may baffle all thy care;
Yet thus, even thus, will human folly dare.
Of wretched mortals lo! the soul is gain:
But death is dreadful midst the whelming main.
These counsels lay to heart; and, warn’d by me,
Trust not thy whole precarious wealth to sea,
Tost in the hollow keel: a portion send;
Thy larger substance let the shore defend.
Wretched the losses of the ocean fall,
When on a fragile plank embark’d thy all:
And wretched when thy sheaves o’erload the wain,
And the crash’d axle spoils the scatter’d grain.
The golden mean of conduct should confine
Our every aim; be moderation thine.