- Gather’d by those, who drink the Volga’s1 wave, [150]
- (Prince of Europa’s streams, itself a sea)
- Equals your potency! Did planters know
- But half your virtues; not the Cane itself,
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Would they with greater, fonder pains preserve!
- STILL other maladies infest the Cane, [155]
- And worse to be subdu’d. The insect-tribe2
- That, fluttering, spread their pinions to the sun,
- Recal the muse: nor shall their many eyes,
- Tho’ edg’d with gold, their many-colour’d down,
- From Death preserve them. In what distant clime, [160]
- In what recesses are the plunderers hatch’d?
- Say, are they wasted in the living gale,
- From distant islands? Thus, the locust-breed,
- In winged caravans, that blot the sky,
- Descend from far, and, ere bright morning dawn,
- Astonish’d Afric sees her crop devour’d. [165]
- Or, doth the Cane a proper nest afford,
- And food adapted to the yellow fly?3——
- The skill’d in Nature’s mystic lore observe,
- Each tree, each plant, that drinks the golden day, [170]
- Some reptile life sustains: Thus cochinille
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The Volga is a river in western Russia that connects to the Baltic, Moscow, and Black Seas before flowing into the Caspian Sea. ↩︎
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Locusts, one of several species of acridids (family Acrididae) that are known for swarming and migrating and causing great damage to crops. ↩︎
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May be Diachlorus ferrugatus, a small biting fly native to Central America and the southeastern United States. ↩︎