56
REMAINS OF HESIOD.
Easy to speak the word, "beseech thee friend!
Thy waggon and thy yoke of oxen lend:"
Easy the prompt refusal; "nay, but I
Have need of oxen, and their work is nigh."
Rich in his own conceit,[1] he then too late
May think to rear the waggon's timber'd weight:
Fool! nor yet knows the complicated frame
A hundred season'd blocks may fitly claim:
These let thy timely care provide before,[2]
And pile beneath thy roof the ready store.
Improve the season: to the plough apply
Both thou and thine; and toil in wet and dry:
Haste to the field with break of glimmering morn,
That so thy grounds may wave with thickening corn.
In spring upturn the glebe: and break again
With summer tilth the iterated plain,
Thy waggon and thy yoke of oxen lend:"
Easy the prompt refusal; "nay, but I
Have need of oxen, and their work is nigh."
Rich in his own conceit,[1] he then too late
May think to rear the waggon's timber'd weight:
Fool! nor yet knows the complicated frame
A hundred season'd blocks may fitly claim:
These let thy timely care provide before,[2]
And pile beneath thy roof the ready store.
Improve the season: to the plough apply
Both thou and thine; and toil in wet and dry:
Haste to the field with break of glimmering morn,
That so thy grounds may wave with thickening corn.
In spring upturn the glebe: and break again
With summer tilth the iterated plain,
- ↑ Rich in his own conceit.] The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men who can render a reason. Proverbs, xxvi. 16.
- ↑ These let thy timely care provide before.] See Virgil, Georg. i. 167:The sharpen'd share and heavy-timber'd plough:
And Ceres' ponderous waggon rolling slow:
And Celeus' harrows, hurdles, sleds to trail
O'er the press'd grain, and Bacchus' flying sail:
These long before provide.Warton.
