The fourth and twenty-fourth no grief should prey
Within thy breast, for holy either day.
Fourth of the moon lead home thy blooming bride,
And be the fittest auguries descried.
[141]Beware the fifth, with horror fraught and wo:
’Tis said the furies walk their round below
Avenging the dread oath; whose awful birth
From discord rose, to scourge the perjured earth.
On the smooth threshing-floor, the seventeenth morn,
Observant throw the sheaves of sacred corn: