But lo! how many kinds, and what their names, There is no telling, nor doth it boot to tell;Who lists to know it, he too would list to learn How many sand-grains are by Zephyr tossed On Libya's plain, or wot, when Eurus falls With fury on the ships, how many waves Come rolling shoreward from the Ionian sea.
Not that all soils can all things bear alike.
Willows by water-courses have their birth, Alders in miry fens; on rocky heights The barren mountain-ashes; on the shore Myrtles throng gayest; Bacchus, lastly, loves The bare hillside, and yews the north wind's chill.
Mark too the earth by outland tillers tamed, And Eastern homes of Arabs, and tattooed Geloni; to all trees their native lands Allotted are; no clime but India bears Black ebony; the branch of frankincense Is Saba's sons' alone; why tell to thee Of balsams oozing from the perfumed wood, Or berries of acanthus ever green?
Of Aethiop forests hoar with downy wool, Or how the Seres comb from off the leaves Their silky fleece? Of groves which India bears, Ocean's near neighbour, earth's remotest nook, Where not an arrow-shot can cleave the air Above their tree-tops? yet no laggards they, When girded with the quiver! Media yields The bitter juices and slow-lingering taste Of the blest citron-fruit, than which no aid Comes timelier, when fierce step-dames drug the cup With simples mixed and spells of baneful power, To drive the deadly poison from the limbs.
Large the tree's self in semblance like a bay, And, showered it not a different scent abroad, A bay it had been; for no wind of heaven Its foliage falls; the flower, none faster, clings;With it the Medes for sweetness lave the lips, And ease the panting breathlessness of age.
But no, not Mede-land with its wealth of woods, Nor Ganges fair, and Hermus thick with gold, Can match the praise of Italy; nor Ind, Nor Bactria, nor Panchaia, one wide tract Of incense-teeming sand. Here never bulls With nostrils snorting fire upturned the sod Sown with the monstrous dragon's teeth, nor crop Of warriors bristled thick with lance and helm;But heavy harvests and the Massic juice Of Bacchus fill its borders, overspread With fruitful flocks and olives. Hence arose The war-horse stepping proudly o'er the plain;Hence thy white flocks, Clitumnus, and the bull, Of victims mightiest, which full oft have led, Bathed in thy sacred stream, the triumph-pomp Of Romans to the temples of the gods.
Here blooms perpetual spring, and summer here In months that are not summer's; twice teem the flocks;Twice doth the tree yield service of her fruit.
But ravening tigers come not nigh, nor breed Of savage lion, nor aconite betrays Its hapless gatherers, nor with sweep so vast Doth the scaled serpent trail his endless coils Along the ground, or wreathe him into spires.
Mark too her cities, so many and so proud, Of mighty toil the achievement, town on town Up rugged precipices heaved and reared, And rivers undergliding ancient walls.
Or should I celebrate the sea that laves Her upper shores and lower? or those broad lakes?
Thee, Larius, greatest and, Benacus, thee With billowy uproar surging like the main?
Or sing her harbours, and the barrier cast Athwart the Lucrine, and how ocean chafes With mighty bellowings, where the Julian wave Echoes the thunder of his rout, and through Avernian inlets pours the Tuscan tide?
A land no less that in her veins displays Rivers of silver, mines of copper ore, Ay, and with gold hath flowed abundantly.
A land that reared a valiant breed of men, The Marsi and Sabellian youth, and, schooled To hardship, the Ligurian, and with these The Volscian javelin-armed, the Decii too, The Marii and Camilli, names of might, The Scipios, stubborn warriors, ay, and thee, Great Caesar, who in Asia's utmost bounds With conquering arm e'en now art fending far The unwarlike Indian from the heights of Rome.
Hail! land of Saturn, mighty mother thou Of fruits and heroes; 'tis for thee I dare Unseal the sacred fountains, and essay Themes of old art and glory, as I sing The song of Ascra through the towns of Rome.
Now for the native gifts of various soils, What powers hath each, what hue, what natural bent For yielding increase. First your stubborn lands And churlish hill-sides, where are thorny fields Of meagre marl and gravel, these delight In long-lived olive-groves to Pallas dear.
Take for a sign the plenteous growth hard by Of oleaster, and the fields strewn wide With woodland berries. But a soil that's rich, In moisture sweet exulting, and the plain That teems with grasses on its fruitful breast, Such as full oft in hollow mountain-dell We view beneath us- from the craggy heights Streams thither flow with fertilizing mud-A plain which southward rising feeds the fern By curved ploughs detested, this one day Shall yield thee store of vines full strong to gush In torrents of the wine-god; this shall be Fruitful of grapes and flowing juice like that We pour to heaven from bowls of gold, what time The sleek Etruscan at the altar blows His ivory pipe, and on the curved dish We lay the reeking entrails. If to rear Cattle delight thee rather, steers, or lambs, Or goats that kill the tender plants, then seek Full-fed Tarentum's glades and distant fields, Or such a plain as luckless Mantua lost Whose weedy water feeds the snow-white swan:
There nor clear springs nor grass the flocks will fail, And all the day-long browsing of thy herds Shall the cool dews of one brief night repair.
