On the Nature of Things. Тит Лукреций Кар

depth

           Have always inward to the centre pressed

           (If thou art ready to believe that aught

           Itself can rest upon itself ); or that

           The ponderous bodies which be under earth

           Do all press upwards and do come to rest

           Upon the earth, in some way upside down,

           Like to those images of things we see

           At present through the waters. They contend,

           With like procedure, that all breathing things

           Head downward roam about, and yet cannot

           Tumble from earth to realms of sky below,

           No more than these our bodies wing away

           Spontaneously to vaults of sky above;

           That, when those creatures look upon the sun,

           We view the constellations of the night;

           And that with us the seasons of the sky

           They thus alternately divide, and thus

           Do pass the night coequal to our days,

           But a vain error has given these dreams to fools,

           Which they've embraced with reasoning perverse

           For centre none can be where world is still

           Boundless, nor yet, if now a centre were,

           Could aught take there a fixed position more

           Than for some other cause 'tmight be dislodged.

           For all of room and space we call the void

           Must both through centre and non-centre yield

           Alike to weights where'er their motions tend.

           Nor is there any place, where, when they've come,

           Bodies can be at standstill in the void,

           Deprived of force of weight; nor yet may void

           Furnish support to any,—nay, it must,

           True to its bent of nature, still give way.

           Thus in such manner not at all can things

           Be held in union, as if overcome

           By craving for a centre.

                                        But besides,

           Seeing they feign that not all bodies press

           To centre inward, rather only those

           Of earth and water (liquid of the sea,

           And the big billows from the mountain slopes,

           And whatsoever are encased, as 'twere,

           In earthen body), contrariwise, they teach

           How the thin air, and with it the hot fire,

           Is borne asunder from the centre, and how,

           For this all ether quivers with bright stars,

           And the sun's flame along the blue is fed

           (Because the heat, from out the centre flying,

           All gathers there), and how, again, the boughs

           Upon the tree-tops could not sprout their leaves,

           Unless, little by little, from out the earth

           For each were nutriment…

           Lest, after the manner of the winged flames,

           The ramparts of the world should flee away,

           Dissolved amain throughout the mighty void,

           And lest all else should likewise follow after,

           Aye, lest the thundering vaults of heaven should burst

           And splinter upward, and the earth forthwith

           Withdraw from under our feet, and all its bulk,

           Among its mingled wrecks and those of heaven,

           With slipping asunder of the primal seeds,

           Should pass, along the immeasurable inane,

           Away forever, and, that instant, naught

           Of wrack and remnant would be left, beside

           The desolate space, and germs invisible.

           For on whatever side thou deemest first

           The primal bodies lacking, lo, that side

           Will be for things the very door of death:

           Wherethrough the throng of matter all will dash,

           Out and abroad.

                          These points, if thou wilt ponder,

           Then, with but paltry trouble led along…

           For one thing after other will grow clear,

           Nor shall the blind night rob thee of the road,

           To hinder thy gaze on nature's Farthest-forth.

           Thus things for things shall kindle torches new.

      BOOK II

      PROEM

           'Tis sweet, when, down the mighty main, the winds

           Roll up its waste of waters, from the land

           To watch another's labouring anguish far,

           Not that we joyously delight that man

           Should thus be smitten, but because 'tis sweet

           To mark what evils we ourselves be spared;

           'Tis sweet, again, to view the mighty strife

           Of armies embattled yonder o'er the plains,

           Ourselves no sharers in the peril; but naught

           There is more goodly than to hold the high

           Serene plateaus, well fortressed by the wise,

           Whence thou may'st look below on other men

           And see them ev'rywhere wand'ring, all dispersed

           In their lone seeking for the road of life;

           Rivals in genius, or emulous in rank,

           Pressing through days and nights with hugest toil

           For summits of power and mastery of the world.

           O wretched minds of men! O blinded hearts!

           In how great perils, in what darks of life

           Are spent the human years, however brief!—

           O not to see that nature for herself

           Barks after nothing, save that pain keep off,

           Disjoined from the body, and that mind enjoy