Excerpt from The Georgics of Virgil: Translated Into English Verse What makes the cornfield smile beneath what Maecenas, it is meet to turn the sod Or marry elm with vine how tend the steer What pains for cattle-keeping, or what proof Of patient trial serves for thrifty bees Such are my themes. 0 universal lights Most glorious ye that lead the gliding year Along the sky, Liber and Ceres mild, If by your bounty holpen earth once changed Chaomian acorn for the plump wheat-ear, And mingled with the grape, your new-found The draughts of Achelous; and ye Fauns To rustics ever kind, come foot it, Fauns And Dryad-maids together; your gifts I sing. And thou, for whose delight the war-horse first Sprang from earth's womb at thy great tride'nt's stroke, Neptune and haunter of the groves, for whom Three hundred snow-white heifers browse the brakes. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.