Of the Nature of Things. T. Lucretius Carus

And from the turf would leap a branching tree--

       Wonders unheard of; for, by Nature, each

       Slowly increases from its lawful seed,

       And through that increase shall conserve its kind.

       Whence take the proof that things enlarge and feed

       From out their proper matter. Thus it comes

       That earth, without her seasons of fixed rains,

       Could bear no produce such as makes us glad,

       And whatsoever lives, if shut from food,

       Prolongs its kind and guards its life no more.

       Thus easier 'tis to hold that many things

       Have primal bodies in common (as we see

       The single letters common to many words)

       Than aught exists without its origins.

       Moreover, why should Nature not prepare

       Men of a bulk to ford the seas afoot,

       Or rend the mighty mountains with their hands,

       Or conquer Time with length of days, if not

       Because for all begotten things abides

       The changeless stuff, and what from that may spring

       Is fixed forevermore? Lastly we see

       How far the tilled surpass the fields untilled

       And to the labour of our hands return

       Their more abounding crops; there are indeed

       Within the earth primordial germs of things,

       Which, as the ploughshare turns the fruitful clods

       And kneads the mould, we quicken into birth.

       Else would ye mark, without all toil of ours,

       Spontaneous generations, fairer forms.

       Confess then, naught from nothing can become,

       Since all must have their seeds, wherefrom to grow,

       Wherefrom to reach the gentle fields of air.

       Hence too it comes that Nature all dissolves

       Into their primal bodies again, and naught

       Perishes ever to annihilation.

       For, were aught mortal in its every part,

       Before our eyes it might be snatched away

       Unto destruction; since no force were needed

       To sunder its members and undo its bands.

       Whereas, of truth, because all things exist,

       With seed imperishable, Nature allows

       Destruction nor collapse of aught, until

       Some outward force may shatter by a blow,

       Or inward craft, entering its hollow cells,

       Dissolve it down. And more than this, if Time,

       That wastes with eld the works along the world,

       Destroy entire, consuming matter all,

       Whence then may Venus back to light of life

       Restore the generations kind by kind?

       Or how, when thus restored, may daedal Earth

       Foster and plenish with her ancient food,

       Which, kind by kind, she offers unto each?

       Whence may the water-springs, beneath the sea,

       Or inland rivers, far and wide away,

       Keep the unfathomable ocean full?

       And out of what does Ether feed the stars?

       For lapsed years and infinite age must else

       Have eat all shapes of mortal stock away:

       But be it the Long Ago contained those germs,

       By which this sum of things recruited lives,

       Those same infallibly can never die,

       Nor nothing to nothing evermore return.

       And, too, the selfsame power might end alike

       All things, were they not still together held

       By matter eternal, shackled through its parts,

       Now more, now less. A touch might be enough

       To cause destruction. For the slightest force

       Would loose the weft of things wherein no part

       Were of imperishable stock. But now

       Because the fastenings of primordial parts

       Are put together diversely and stuff

       Is everlasting, things abide the same

       Unhurt and sure, until some power comes on

       Strong to destroy the warp and woof of each:

       Nothing returns to naught; but all return

       At their collapse to primal forms of stuff.

       Lo, the rains perish which Ether-father throws

       Down to the bosom of Earth-mother; but then

       Upsprings the shining grain, and boughs are green

       Amid the trees, and trees themselves wax big

       And lade themselves with fruits; and hence in turn

       The race of man and all the wild are fed;

       Hence joyful cities thrive with boys and girls;

       And leafy woodlands echo with new birds;

       Hence cattle, fat and drowsy, lay their bulk

       Along the joyous pastures whilst the drops

       Of white ooze trickle from distended bags;

       Hence the young scamper on their weakling joints

       Along the tender herbs, fresh hearts afrisk

       With warm new milk. Thus naught of what so seems

       Perishes utterly, since Nature ever

       Upbuilds one thing from other, suffering naught

       To come to birth but through some other's death.

       *****

       And now, since I have taught that things cannot

       Be born from nothing, nor the same, when born,

       To nothing be recalled, doubt not my words,

       Because our eyes no primal germs perceive;

       For mark those bodies which, though known to be

       In this our world, are yet invisible:

       The winds infuriate lash our face and frame,

       Unseen, and swamp huge ships and rend the clouds,

       Or, eddying wildly down, bestrew the plains

       With mighty trees, or scour the mountain tops

       With forest-crackling blasts. Thus on they rave

       With uproar shrill and ominous moan. The winds,

       'Tis clear, are sightless bodies sweeping through

       The sea, the lands, the clouds along the sky,

       Vexing and whirling and seizing all amain;

       And forth they flow and pile destruction round,

       Even as the water's soft and supple bulk

       Becoming a river of abounding floods,

       Which a wide downpour from the lofty hills

       Swells with big showers, dashes headlong down

       Fragments of woodland and whole branching trees;