52
THE FARM AND
That evening fires may feed their merry glow—
And can we doubt to plant and lavish care?
Why need I follow every forest-tree?
The willows and the lowly brooms for me!
Leaves for the flock, and shade for swains they yield, 520
And food for bees, and fences for the field.
How sweet to see Cytorus waving rich
With box, and forests of Narycian pitch!
To see the plains no whit beholden there
To harrows, or to any human care! 525
The very woods, upon Caucasian steep,
(Which violent east winds ever crash and sweep,)
Give various growth, the pine so staunch at sea,
For houses cedar, and the cypress tree:
Hence spokes are planed, and wagon block-wheels made, 530
And raking keels for rustic shallops laid,
Willow for bines, and elms for fodder good,
For spear-shafts myrtle, and stout cornel-wood:
To bows of Ityra the yew is bent,
And lindens smooth accept the tool's intent; 535
The box-tree, on the lathe so clean to shave,
Is hollow'd as the whetted gouges grave.
And can we doubt to plant and lavish care?
Why need I follow every forest-tree?
The willows and the lowly brooms for me!
Leaves for the flock, and shade for swains they yield, 520
And food for bees, and fences for the field.
How sweet to see Cytorus waving rich
With box, and forests of Narycian pitch!
To see the plains no whit beholden there
To harrows, or to any human care! 525
The very woods, upon Caucasian steep,
(Which violent east winds ever crash and sweep,)
Give various growth, the pine so staunch at sea,
For houses cedar, and the cypress tree:
Hence spokes are planed, and wagon block-wheels made, 530
And raking keels for rustic shallops laid,
Willow for bines, and elms for fodder good,
For spear-shafts myrtle, and stout cornel-wood:
To bows of Ityra the yew is bent,
And lindens smooth accept the tool's intent; 535
The box-tree, on the lathe so clean to shave,
Is hollow'd as the whetted gouges grave.
