To snatch soft slumber

  Me list not then beneath the open heaven

  To snatch soft slumber, nor on forest-ridge

  Lie stretched along the grass, when, slipped his slough,

  To glittering youth transformed he winds his spires,

  And eggs or younglings leaving in his lair,

  Towers sunward, lightening with three-forked tongue.

    Of sickness, too, the causes and the signs

  I'll teach thee. Loathly scab assails the sheep,

  When chilly showers have probed them to the quick,

  And winter stark with hoar-frost, or when sweat

  Unpurged cleaves to them after shearing done,

  And rough thorns rend their bodies. Hence it is

  Shepherds their whole flock steep in running streams,

  While, plunged beneath the flood, with drenched fell,

  The ram, launched free, goes drifting down the tide.

  Else, having shorn, they smear their bodies o'er

  With acrid oil-lees, and mix silver-scum

  And native sulphur and Idaean pitch,

  Wax mollified with ointment, and therewith

  Sea-leek, strong hellebores, bitumen black.