Nor of one kind alone are sturdy elms,Willow and lotus, nor the cypress-treesOf Ida; nor of self-same fashion springFat olives, orchades, and radiiAnd bitter-berried pausians, no, nor yetApples and the forests of Alcinous;Nor from like cuttings are Crustumian pearsAnd Syrian, and the heavy hand-fillers.Not the same vintage from our trees hangs down,Which Lesbos from Methymna's tendril plucks.Vines Thasian are there, Mareotids white,These apt for richer soils, for lighter those:Psithian for raisin-wine more useful, thinLageos, that one day will try the feetAnd tie the tongue: purples and early-ripes,And how, O Rhaetian, shall I hymn thy praise?Yet cope not therefore with Falernian bins.Vines Aminaean too, best-bodied wine,To which the Tmolian bows him, ay, and kingPhanaeus too, and, lesser of that name,Argitis, wherewith not a grape can vieFor gush of wine-juice or for length of years.Nor thee must I pass over, vine of Rhodes,Welcomed by gods and at the second board,Nor thee, Bumastus, with plump clusters swollen.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 learnHow many sand-grains are by Zephyr tossedOn Libya's plain, or wot, when Eurus fallsWith fury on the ships, how many wavesCome 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 heightsThe barren mountain-ashes; on the shoreMyrtles throng gayest; Bacchus, lastly, lovesThe bare hillside, and yews the north wind's chill.Mark too the earth by outland tillers tamed,And Eastern homes of Arabs, and tattooedGeloni; to all trees their native landsAllotted are; no clime but India bearsBlack ebony; the branch of frankincenseIs Saba's sons' alone; why tell to theeOf 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 leavesTheir silky fleece? Of groves which India bears,Ocean's near neighbour, earth's remotest nook,Where not an arrow-shot can cleave the airAbove their tree-tops? yet no laggards they,When girded with the quiver! Media yieldsThe bitter juices and slow-lingering tasteOf the blest citron-fruit, than which no aidComes timelier, when fierce step-dames drug the cupWith 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 heavenIts 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 tractOf incense-teeming sand. Here never bullsWith nostrils snorting fire upturned the sodSown with the monstrous dragon's teeth, nor cropOf warriors bristled thick with lance and helm;But heavy harvests and the Massic juiceOf Bacchus fill its borders, overspreadWith fruitful flocks and olives. Hence aroseThe 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-pompOf Romans to the temples of the gods.Here blooms perpetual spring, and summer hereIn 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 breedOf savage lion, nor aconite betraysIts hapless gatherers, nor with sweep so vastDoth the scaled serpent trail his endless coilsAlong the ground, or wreathe him into spires.Mark too her cities, so many and so proud,Of mighty toil the achievement, town on townUp rugged precipices heaved and reared,And rivers undergliding ancient walls.Or should I celebrate the sea that lavesHer upper shores and lower? or those broad lakes?Thee, Larius, greatest and, Benacus, theeWith billowy uproar surging like the main?Or sing her harbours, and the barrier castAthwart the Lucrine, and how ocean chafesWith mighty bellowings, where the Julian waveEchoes the thunder of his rout, and throughAvernian inlets pours the Tuscan tide?A land no less that in her veins displaysRivers 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, schooledTo hardship, the Ligurian, and with theseThe 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 boundsWith conquering arm e'en now art fending farThe unwarlike Indian from the heights of Rome.Hail! land of Saturn, mighty mother thouOf fruits and heroes; 'tis for thee I dareUnseal the sacred fountains, and essayThemes of old art and glory, as I singThe song of Ascra through the towns of Rome. Now for the native gifts of various soils,What powers hath each, what hue, what natural bentFor yielding increase. First your stubborn landsAnd churlish hill-sides, where are thorny fieldsOf meagre marl and gravel, these delightIn long-lived olive-groves to Pallas dear.Take for a sign the plenteous growth hard byOf oleaster, and the fields strewn wideWith woodland berries. But a soil that's rich,In moisture sweet exulting, and the plainThat teems with grasses on its fruitful breast,Such as full oft in hollow mountain-dellWe view beneath us—from the craggy heightsStreams thither flow with fertilizing mud—A plain which southward rising feeds the fernBy curved ploughs detested, this one dayShall yield thee store of vines full strong to gushIn torrents of the wine-god; this shall beFruitful of grapes and flowing juice like thatWe pour to heaven from bowls of gold, what timeThe sleek Etruscan at the altar blowsHis ivory pipe, and on the curved dishWe lay the reeking entrails. If to rearCattle delight thee rather, steers, or lambs,Or goats that kill the tender plants, then seekFull-fed Tarentum's glades and distant fields,Or such a plain as luckless Mantua lostWhose 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 herdsShall the cool dews of one brief night repair.Land which the burrowing share shows dark and rich,With crumbling soil—for this we counterfeitIn ploughing—for corn is goodliest; from no fieldMore wains thou'lt see wend home with plodding steers;Or that from which the husbandman in spleenHas cleared the timber, and o'erthrown the copseThat year on year lay idle, and from the rootsUptorn the immemorial haunt of birds;They banished from their nests have sought the skies;But the rude plain beneath the ploughshare's strokeStarts into sudden brightness. For indeedThe starved hill-country gravel scarce serves the beesWith lowly cassias and with rosemary;Rough tufa and chalk too, by black water-wormsGnawed through and through, proclaim no soils besideSo rife with serpent-dainties, or that yieldSuch winding lairs to lurk in. That again,Which vapoury mist and flitting smoke exhales,Drinks moisture up and casts it forth at will,Which, ever in its own green grass arrayed,Mars not the metal with salt scurf of rust—That shall thine elms with merry vines enwreathe;That teems with olive; that shall thy tilth prove kindTo cattle, and patient of the curved share.Such ploughs rich Capua, such the coast that skirtsThy ridge, Vesuvius, and the Clanian flood,Acerrae's desolation and her bane. How each to recognize now hear me tell.Dost ask if loose or passing firm it be—Since one for corn hath liking, one for wine,The firmer sort for Ceres, none too looseFor thee, Lyaeus?—with scrutinizing eyeFirst choose thy ground, and bid a pit be sunkDeep in the solid earth, then cast the mouldAll back again, and stamp the surface smooth.If it suffice not, loose will be the land,More meet for cattle and for kindly vines;But if, rebellious, to its proper boundsThe soil returns not, but fills all the trenchAnd overtops it, then the glebe is gross;Look for stiff ridges and reluctant clods,And with strong bullocks cleave the fallow crust.Salt ground again, and bitter, as 'tis called—Barren for fruits, by tilth untamable,Nor grape her kind, nor apples their good nameMaintaining—will in this wise yield thee proof:Stout osier-baskets from the rafter-smoke,And strainers of the winepress pluck thee down;Hereinto let that evil land, with freshSpring-water mixed, be trampled to the full;The moisture, mark you, will ooze all away,In big drops issuing through the osier-withes,But plainly will its taste the secret tell,And with a harsh twang ruefully distortThe mouths of them that try it. Rich soil againWe learn on this wise: tossed from hand to handYet cracks it never, but pitch-like, as we hold,Clings to the fingers. A land with moisture rifeBreeds lustier herbage, and is more than meetProlific. Ah I may never such for meO'er-fertile prove, or make too stout a showAt the first earing! Heavy land or lightThe mute self-witness of its weight betrays.A glance will serve to warn thee which is black,Or what the hue of any. But hard it isTo track the signs of that pernicious cold:Pines only, noxious yews, and ivies darkAt times reveal its traces.