As the cicala strips its body bare
Of its fine coat, and needs no mother’s care.
And now Earth’s motherliness that had first
Found its scope in herbage, in due course nursed
Human life itself.
Wombs from moist heat grew
Soil-fixed by roots that nutriment thence drew.
This children, when they broke forth, sucked, and then,
Issuing to air, walked erect as Men.
Owing thus to one source—Earth’s breast—their milk,