The Georgics of Vergil Author:Virgil Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: BOOK III. T i-T|NTO thee, mighty Pales, and unto thee, 'jj Immortal shepherd of the Amphrysus, now My hymn I raise; and hearken, ye streams, to me And forest... more »s upon Lycaaus' mountain-brow ! For the themes that held enthralled in song's delight The idle spirits of men are long gone trite. Lives any yet who hath never heard the tale Of hard Eurystheus ? or of the rites accurst Offered of Busfris ] or Alcides' wail For his lost Hylas ] Any, as yet unverst In the lore of Leto and her Delian shrine, Or the story of Hippodamia, and the shine Of the ivory shoulder of Pelops, horseman keen ] But the path I strive to follow climbeth steeps Winning whereunto I shall be crowned of men, And the praise of my doings hover about their lips, If life but last! And, first, unto mine own land Will I lead in triumph home the Muses' band, — Ay, unto thee, my Mantua, will I bear The palms of Edom, and in thy green plain set A temple of marble by the water fair, Whose reedy banks are as a delicate net Inwoven, — there, by the spacious curves, and slow, Still wanderings of the noble Mincio, Its midmost shrine shall Cesar's image keep. And I, in my triumphal robes of pride, — Purple of Tyre, — will bid a century sweep Of four-horse chariots adown the river side. From the Alphean plain, the Nemean wood, In the great races, and with the cestus rude, Hasteneth all Greece to vie. Then will I bind My brows with olive, and offer sacrifice, While the slain bullocks, and the trains that wind Majestic unto the temples, glad mine eyes. Or the varying scenes of the mimic stage appear, Where the purple curtain riseth, as though it were Uplifted of the wild Britons thereon wrought. But the gold and ivory door-posts of my fane Shall bear the story ...« less