De Rerum Natura

Many a body ebbeth and runs off;

But yet still more must come, until the things

Have touched development's top pinnacle;

Then old age breaks their powers and ripe strength

And falls away into a worser part.

For ever the ampler and more wide a thing,

As soon as ever its augmentation ends,

It scatters abroad forthwith to all sides round

More bodies, sending them from out itself.

Nor easily now is food disseminate

Through all its veins; nor is that food enough

To equal with a new supply on hand

Those plenteous exhalations it gives off.

Thus, fairly, all things perish, when with ebbing

They're made less dense and when from blows without

They are laid low; since food at last will fail

Extremest eld, and bodies from outside

Cease not with thumping to undo a thing

And overmaster by infesting blows.

Thus, too, the ramparts of the mighty world

On all sides round shall taken be by storm,

And tumble to wrack and shivered fragments down.

For food it is must keep things whole, renewing;

'Tis food must prop and give support to all,-

But to no purpose, since nor veins suffice

To hold enough, nor nature ministers

As much as needful. And even now 'tis thus:

Its age is broken and the earth, outworn

With many parturitions, scarce creates

The little lives- she who created erst

All generations and gave forth at birth

Enormous bodies of wild beasts of old.

For never, I fancy, did a golden cord

From off the firmament above let down

The mortal generations to the fields;

Nor sea, nor breakers pounding on the rocks

Created them; but earth it was who bore-

The same to-day who feeds them from herself.

Besides, herself of own accord, she first

The shining grains and vineyards of all joy

Created for mortality; herself

Gave the sweet fruitage and the pastures glad,

Which now to-day yet scarcely wax in size,

Even when aided by our toiling arms.

We break the ox, and wear away the strength

Of sturdy farm-hands; iron tools to-day

Barely avail for tilling of the fields,

So niggardly they grudge our harvestings,

So much increase our labour. Now to-day

The aged ploughman, shaking of his head,

Sighs o'er and o'er that labours of his hands

Have fallen out in vain, and, as he thinks

How present times are not as times of old,

Often he praises the fortunes of his sire,

And crackles, prating, how the ancient race,

Fulfilled with piety, supported life

With simple comfort in a narrow plot,

Since, man for man, the measure of each field

Was smaller far i' the old days. And, again,

The gloomy planter of the withered vine

Rails at the season's change and wearies heaven,

Nor grasps that all of things by sure degrees

Are wasting away and going to the tomb,

Outworn by venerable length of life.

O thou who first uplifted in such dark

So clear a torch aloft, who first shed light

Upon the profitable ends of man,

O thee I follow, glory of the Greeks,

And set my footsteps squarely planted now

Even in the impress and the marks of thine-

Less like one eager to dispute the palm,

More as one craving out of very love

That I may copy thee!- for how should swallow

Contend with swans or what compare could be

In a race between young kids with tumbling legs

And the strong might of the horse? Our father thou,

And finder-out of truth, and thou to us

Suppliest a father's precepts; and from out

Those scriven leaves of thine, renowned soul

(Like bees that sip of all in flowery wolds),

We feed upon thy golden sayings all-

Golden, and ever worthiest endless life.

For soon as ever thy planning thought that sprang

From god-like mind begins its loud proclaim

Of nature's courses, terrors of the brain

Asunder flee, the ramparts of the world

Dispart away, and through the void entire

I see the movements of the universe.

Rises to vision the majesty of gods,

And their abodes of everlasting calm

Which neither wind may shake nor rain-cloud splash,

Nor snow, congealed by sharp frosts, may harm

With its white downfall: ever, unclouded sky

O'er roofs, and laughs with far-diffused light.

And nature gives to them their all, nor aught

May ever pluck their peace of mind away.

But nowhere to my vision rise no more

The vaults of Acheron, though the broad earth

Bars me no more from gazing down o'er all

Which under our feet is going on below