On the Nature of Things. Тит Лукреций Кар

In any kind: thou wilt discover still

           Each from the other still unlike in shape.

           Nor in no other wise could offspring know

           Mother, nor mother offspring—which we see

           They yet can do, distinguished one from other,

           No less than human beings, by clear signs.

           Thus oft before fair temples of the gods,

           Beside the incense-burning altars slain,

           Drops down the yearling calf, from out its breast

           Breathing warm streams of blood; the orphaned mother,

           Ranging meanwhile green woodland pastures round,

           Knows well the footprints, pressed by cloven hoofs,

           With eyes regarding every spot about,

           For sight somewhere of youngling gone from her;

           And, stopping short, filleth the leafy lanes

           With her complaints; and oft she seeks again

           Within the stall, pierced by her yearning still.

           Nor tender willows, nor dew-quickened grass,

           Nor the loved streams that glide along low banks,

           Can lure her mind and turn the sudden pain;

           Nor other shapes of calves that graze thereby

           Distract her mind or lighten pain the least—

           So keen her search for something known and hers.

           Moreover, tender kids with bleating throats

           Do know their horned dams, and butting lambs

           The flocks of sheep, and thus they patter on,

           Unfailingly each to its proper teat,

           As nature intends. Lastly, with any grain,

           Thou'lt see that no one kernel in one kind

           Is so far like another, that there still

           Is not in shapes some difference running through.

           By a like law we see how earth is pied

           With shells and conchs, where, with soft waves, the sea

           Beats on the thirsty sands of curving shores.

           Wherefore again, again, since seeds of things

           Exist by nature, nor were wrought with hands

           After a fixed pattern of one other,

           They needs must flitter to and fro with shapes

           In types dissimilar to one another.

           Easy enough by thought of mind to solve

           Why fires of lightning more can penetrate

           Than these of ours from pitch-pine born on earth.

           For thou canst say lightning's celestial fire,

           So subtle, is formed of figures finer far,

           And passes thus through holes which this our fire,

           Born from the wood, created from the pine,

           Cannot. Again, light passes through the horn

           On the lantern's side, while rain is dashed away.

           And why?—unless those bodies of light should be

           Finer than those of water's genial showers.

           We see how quickly through a colander

           The wines will flow; how, on the other hand,

           The sluggish olive-oil delays: no doubt,

           Because 'tis wrought of elements more large,

           Or else more crook'd and intertangled. Thus

           It comes that the primordials cannot be

           So suddenly sundered one from other, and seep,

           One through each several hole of anything.

           And note, besides, that liquor of honey or milk

           Yields in the mouth agreeable taste to tongue,

           Whilst nauseous wormwood, pungent centaury,

           With their foul flavour set the lips awry;

           Thus simple 'tis to see that whatsoever

           Can touch the senses pleasingly are made

           Of smooth and rounded elements, whilst those

           Which seem the bitter and the sharp, are held

           Entwined by elements more crook'd, and so

           Are wont to tear their ways into our senses,

           And rend our body as they enter in.

           In short all good to sense, all bad to touch,

           Being up-built of figures so unlike,

           Are mutually at strife—lest thou suppose

           That the shrill rasping of a squeaking saw

           Consists of elements as smooth as song

           Which, waked by nimble fingers, on the strings

           The sweet musicians fashion; or suppose

           That same-shaped atoms through men's nostrils pierce

           When foul cadavers burn, as when the stage

           Is with Cilician saffron sprinkled fresh,

           And the altar near exhales Panchaean scent;

           Or hold as of like seed the goodly hues

           Of things which feast our eyes, as those which sting

           Against the smarting pupil and draw tears,

           Or show, with gruesome aspect, grim and vile.

           For never a shape which charms our sense was made

           Without some elemental smoothness; whilst

           Whate'er is harsh and irksome has been framed

           Still with some roughness in its elements.

           Some, too, there are which justly are supposed

           To be nor smooth nor altogether hooked,

           With bended barbs, but slightly angled-out,

           To tickle rather than to wound the sense—

           And of which sort is the salt tartar of wine

           And flavours of the gummed elecampane.

           Again, that glowing fire and icy rime

           Are fanged with teeth unlike whereby to sting

           Our body's sense, the touch of each gives proof.

           For touch—by sacred majesties of Gods!—

           Touch is indeed the body's only sense—

           Be't that something in-from-outward