The Georgics

For God, they say, pervades all things, earth and sea's expanse and heaven's depth.

His cares are eased with intervals of bliss;

His little children, climbing for a kiss,

Welcome their father's late return at night;

His faithful bed is crowned with chaste delight.

Yet theirs is repose without care, and a life that knows no fraud, but is rich in treasures manifold.

So deep is their love of flowers and their glory in begetting honey.

I must essay a path whereby I, too, may rise from earth and fly victorious on the lips of men.

Vice thrives and lives by concealment.

But meanwhile it is flying, irretrievable time is flying.

Toil conquered the world, unrelenting toil, and want that pinches when life is hard.

So strong is habit in tender years.

Practice and thought might gradually forge many an art.

How lucky, if they know their happiness,

Are farmers, more than lucky, they for whom,

Far from the clash of arms, the earth herself,

Most fair in dealing, freely lavishes

An easy livelihood.

In youth alone, unhappy mortals live;

But, ah! the mighty bliss is fugitive:

Discolored sickness, anxious labor, come,

And age, and death's inexorable doom.

Thus by law of fate all things speed towards the worst, and slipping away fall back.

Look with favor upon a bold beginning.

Love is lord of all, and is in all the same.

Let my delight be the country, and the running streams amid the dells—may I love the waters and the woods, though I be unknown to fame.

Blessed is he who has been able to win knowledge of the causes of things.

In primis venerare Deos.