"Non insueta graves temptabunt pabula fetas"
is translated
"Here no unwonted herb shall tempt the travailing cattle."
What it really means is, no change of fodder, no fodder which is strange to them, shall "infect" or "try" the pregnant cattle, "insueta" being used in exactly the same sense as in Eclogue V. 56, "insuetum miratur limen Olympi," and "temptare" as it is used in Georg. III. 441, and commonly in classical Latin. It is, to say the least, questionable whether in the couplet—
"Pauperis et tuguri congestum cæspite culmen,
Post aliquot, mea regna videns, mirabor aristas?"—
the last line can mean
"Gaze on the straggling corn, the remains of what once was my kingdom."
"Aristas" is much more likely to be a metonymy for "messes," i.e. "annos," like αροτου in Sophocles' Trachiniæ, 69, τον μεν παρελθοντ' αροτον, a confirmative illustration which seems to have escaped the commentators; but it is difficult to say, and Sir Osborne has, it must be owned, excellent authority for his interpretation. In Eclogue III. the somewhat difficult passage
"pocula ponam