SYLVA 273 



How oft from hollow oaks the heading crow, 

 The winds and future tempests do's foreshow ! 

 Of these the wary plowman should make use ; 

 Hence observations of his own deduce : 

 And so the changes of the weather tell. 

 But from your groves all hurtful birds expel. 



When e're you plant, through oaks your beech diffuse ; 



The hard male-oak, and lofty cerrus chuse. 



While esculus of the mast-bearing kind, 



Chief in ilicean groves we always find. 



For it affords a far extending shade ; 



Of one of these sometimes a wood is made. 



They stand unmov'd, though winter do's assail, 



Nor more can winds, or rain, or storms prevail. 



To their own race they ever are inclin'd, 

 And love with their associates to be joyn'd. 

 When fleets are rigg'd, and we to fight prepare, 

 They yield us plank, and furnish arms for war. 

 Fuel to fire, to plowmen plows they give, 

 To other uses we may them derive. 

 But nothing must the sacred tree prophane : 

 Some boughs for garlands from it may be ta'en 

 For those whose arms their country-men preserve, 

 Such are the honours which the oaks deserve. 



We know not certainly whence first of all 

 This plant did borrow its original. 

 Whether on Ladon, or on Maenalus 

 It grew, if fat Chaonia did produce 

 It first, but better from our mother-earth, 

 Than modern rumours we may learn their birth. 

 When Jupiter the world's foundation laid, 

 Great earth-born gyants heaven did invade, 

 And Jove himself, (when these he did subdue.) 

 His lightning on the factious brethren threw. 

 Tellus her sons misfortunes do's deplore ; 

 And while she cherishes the yet-warm gore 

 Of Rhoecus, from his monstrous body grows 

 A vaster trunk, and from his breast arose 

 A hardned oak, his shoulders are the same, 

 And oak his high exalted head became. 



