Classic Poem

FROM GEORG. IV. — LINE 116.

But, were I not, before the favouring gale,
Making to port, and crowding all my sail,
Perhaps I might the garden's glories sing,
The double roses of the Paestan spring;
How Endive drinks the rill, and how are seen
Moist banks with Celery for ever green;
How, twisted in the matted herbage, lies
The bellying Cucumber's enormous size;
What flowers Narcissus late, how Nature weaves
The yielding texture of Acanthus' leaves:
Of Ivy pale the culture next explore,
And whence the lover-myrtle courts the shore.
For I remember (where Galesus yields
His humid moisture to the yellow fields,
And high Oebalia's tow'rs o'erlook the plain,)
I knew in youth an old Corycian swain;
A few and barren acres were his share,
Left and abandon'd to the good man's care;
Nor these indulg'd the grassy lawn, to feed
The fattening bullock, nor the bounding steed,
Nor gave to cattle browze, nor food to kine,
Bacchus averse refus'd the mantling vine.
What happy nature to his lands denied,
An honest, painful industry supplied;
For, trusting pot-herbs to his bushy ground,
For bees, fair candid lilles flourish'd round,
Vervain for health, for bread he poppies plants,
With these he satisfied all nature's wants;
And late returning home from wholesome toil,
Enjoy'd the frugal bounty of the soil.
His mind was royal in a low estate,
And dignified the meanness of his fate.
He first in Spring was seen to crop the rose,
In Autumn first to unload the bending boughs;
For every bud the early year bestow'd,
A reddening apple on the branches glow'd,
Ev'n in the midst of Winter's rigid reign,
When snow and frost had whiten'd o'er the plain,
When cold had split the rocks, and stript the woods,
And shackled up the mighty running floods,
He then, anticipating Summer's hopes,
The tendrils of the soft Acanthus crops;
His industry awak'd the lazy spring,
And hasten'd on the zephyr's loitering wing.
For this with pregnant bees he chief was known
To' abound: the balmy harvest all his own.
Successive swarms reward his faithful toil;
None press'd from richer combs the liquid spoil.
He crown'd his rural orchard's plain design,
With flowering lime-trees, and a wealth of pine.
He knew in graceful order to dispose
Large-bodied elms, transplanted into rows.
Hard pear-trees flourish'd near his rustic dome,
And thorns already purple with the plumb;
Broad planes arose to form an ample bow'r,
Where mirth's gay sons refresh'd the sultry hour.
But I this grateful subject must discard,
The pleasing labour of some future bard.