HKB
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 learn How many sand-grains are by Zephyr tossed On Libya's plain, or wot, when Eurus falls With fury on the ships, how many waves Come 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 heights The barren mountain-ashes; on the shore Myrtles throng gayest; Bacchus, lastly, loves The bare hillside, and yews the north wind's chill. Mark too the earth by outland tillers tamed, And Eastern homes of Arabs, and tattooed Geloni; to all trees their native lands Allotted are; no clime but India bears Black ebony; the branch of frankincense Is Saba's sons' alone; why tell to thee Of 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 leaves Their silky fleece? Of groves which India bears, Ocean's near neighbour, earth's remotest nook, Where not an arrow-shot can cleave the air Above their tree-tops? yet no laggards they, When girded with the quiver! Media yields The bitter juices and slow-lingering taste Of the blest citron-fruit, than which no aid Comes timelier, when fierce step-dames drug the cup With 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 heaven Its 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 tract Of incense-teeming sand. Here never bulls With nostrils snorting fire upturned the sod Sown with the monstrous dragon's teeth, nor crop Of warriors bristled thick with lance and helm; But heavy harvests and the Massic juice Of Bacchus fill its borders, overspread With fruitful flocks and olives. Hence arose The 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-pomp Of Romans to the temples of the gods. Here blooms perpetual spring, and summer here In 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 breed Of savage lion, nor aconite betrays Its hapless gatherers, nor with sweep so vast Doth the scaled serpent trail his endless coils Along the ground, or wreathe him into spires. Mark too her cities, so many and so proud, Of mighty toil the achievement, town on town Up rugged precipices heaved and reared, And rivers undergliding ancient walls.