"If your care to wheat alone extend, Let Maia with her sisters first descend, Before you trust in earth your future hope, Or else expect a listless, lazy crop."

"Did we for these barbarians plant and sow, On these, on these our happy fields bestow?"

"While the reaper fills his greedy hands, And binds the golden sheaves in brittle bands."

"Here the marshy grounds approach your fields, And there the soil a stony harvest yields."

"The wiser madman did for virtue toil A thorny, or at least a barren, soil."

"Bid the laborious hind, Whose harden’d hands did long in tillage toil, Neglect the promised harvest of the soil."

"Let thy hand supply the pruning-knife, And crop luxuriant stragglers."

"Be mindful With iron teeth of rakes and prongs to move The crusted earth."

"Nor is the profit small the peasant makes, Who smooths with harrow, or who pounds with rakes, The crumbling clods."

"Root up wild olives from thy labour’d lands."

"Ah that your business had been mine, To pen the sheep."

"At harvest-home, and on the shearing day, When he should thanks to Pan and Pales pay."

"In vain the barns expect their promised load; Nor barns at home, nor ricks are heap’d abroad."

"First, with assiduous care from winter keep, Well fother’d in the stalls, thy tender sheep; Then spread with straw the bedding of thy fold, With fern beneath, to fend the bitter cold."

"The soil, with fatt’ning moisture fill’d, Is clothed with grass, and fruitful to be till’d; Such as in fruitful vales we view from high, Which dripping rocks, not rowling streams supply."

"Yet then this little spot of earth well till’d, A num’rous family with plenty fill’d, The good old man and thrifty housewife spent Their days in peace and fatten’d with content; Enjoy’d the dregs of life, and lived to see A long descending healthful progeny."

"T’ unload the branches, or the leaves to thin That suck the vital moisture of the vine."

"Uneasy still within these narrow bounds, Thy next design is on thy neighbour’s grounds: His crop invites, to full perfection grown; Thy own seems thin, because it is thy own."

"Rocks lie cover’d with eternal snow; Thin herbage in the plains, and fruitless fields."

"Your farm requites your pains, Though rushes overspread the neighb’ring plains."

"Where the tender rinds of trees disclose Their shooting germs, a swelling knot there grows; Just in that place a narrow slit we make, Then other buds from bearing trees we take; Inserted thus, the wounded rind we close."

"The peaceful peasant to the wars is prest, The fields lie fallow in inglorious rest."

"Their morning milk the peasants press at night; Their evening milk before the rising light."

"All was common, and the fruitful earth Was free to give her unexacted birth."

"Give me, ye gods, the product of one field, That so I neither may be rich nor poor; And haying just enough, not covet more."

"To dress the vines new labour is required, Nor must the painful husbandman be tired."

"Ev’n when they sing at ease in full content, Insulting o’er the toil they underwent, Yet still they find a future task remain, To turn the soil."

"Suffering not the yellow beards to rear, He tramples down the spikes, and intercepts the ear."

"Let Araby extol her happy coast, Her fragrant flow’rs, her trees with precious tears, Her second harvests."

"Apollo check’d my pride, and bade me feed My fatt’ning flocks, nor dare beyond the reed."

"Thou hop’st with sacrifice of oxen slain To compass wealth, and bribe the god of gain To give thee flocks and herds, with large increase; Fool! to expect them from a bullock’s grease."

"To his county farm the fool confined; Rude work well suited with a rustic mind."

"The peasant, innocent of all these ills, With crooked ploughs the fertile fallow tills, And the round year with daily labour fills."

"But various are the ways to change the state, To plant, to bud, to graft, to inoculate."

"For flax and oats will burn the tender field, And sleepy poppies harmful harvests yield."

"We may know And when to reap the grain and when to sow, Or when to fell the furzes."

"Most have found A husky harvest from the grudging ground."

"Where the vales with violets once were crown’d, Now knotty burs and thorns disgrace the ground."

"For sundry foes the rural realm surround; The field-mouse builds her garner under ground: For gather’d grain the blind laborious mole, In winding mazes, works her hidden hole."

"Begin when the slow waggoner descends, Nor cease your sowing till midwinter ends."

"But when the western winds with vital pow’r Call forth the tender grass and budding flow’r, Men, at the last, produce in open air Both flocks, and send them to their summer’s fare."

"She took the coleworts which her husband got From his own ground (a small well-water’d spot); She stripp’d the stalks of all their leaves; the best She cull’d, and then with handy care she dress’d."

"And oft whole sheets descend of sluicy rain, Suck’d by the spungy clouds from off the main: The lofty skies at once come pouring down, The promised crop and golden labours drown."

"You who supply the ground with seeds of grain, And you who swell those seeds with kindly rain."

"When continued rain The lab’ring husband in his house restrain, Let him forecast his work with timely care, Which else is huddled when the skies are fair."

"Dryden has neither a tender heart nor a lofty sense of moral dignity: where his language is poetically impassioned it is mostly upon unpleasing subjects; such as the follies, vice, and crimes of classes of men or of individuals."

"I learned versification chiefly from Dryden's works, who has improved it much beyond any of our former poets, and would probably have brought it to its perfection, had not he been unhappily obliged to write so often in haste."