Georgics

What makes for fulsome fields, beneath what star to till
The earth, Maecenas, and to join vines with the elms
Befits, what care of oxen, and what cult for holding
Flocks, how much we suffer for our thrifty bees,
Hence will I begin to sing. You, most luminous
Of universal lights, who marshal a year slipping
Under heaven, if, Liber and alma Ceres, through any gift
Of yours the land exchanged the acorn of Chaonia
For fattened ears and Acheloia's cups
With innovative wine -- and you, present numina
Of fields, Fauns, and you too, dance, Dryad girls --
Your services I sing. You also, for whom the primal
Earth shot a whizzing horse when dashed against
That awesome trident, yours, oh Neptune; and initiate
To groves, whose double century of snowy
Bullocks, at Cea, is shearing the prodigious mead;