De Rerum Natura

Forever with new waters overflow,

And that perennially the fluids well,

Needeth no words- the mighty flux itself

Of multitudinous waters round about

Declareth this. But whatso water first

Streams up is ever straightway carried off,

And thus it comes to pass that all in all

There is no overflow; in part because

The burly winds (that over-sweep amain)

And skiey sun (that with his rays dissolves)

Do minish the level seas; in part because

The water is diffused underground

Through all the lands. The brine is filtered off,

And then the liquid stuff seeps back again

And all regathers at the river-heads,

Whence in fresh-water currents on it flows

Over the lands, adown the channels which

Were cleft erstwhile and erstwhile bore along

The liquid-footed floods.

Now, then, of air

I'll speak, which hour by hour in all its body

Is changed innumerably. For whatso'er

Streams up in dust or vapour off of things,

The same is all and always borne along

Into the mighty ocean of the air;

And did not air in turn restore to things

Bodies, and thus recruit them as they stream,

All things by this time had resolved been

And changed into air. Therefore it never

Ceases to be engendered off of things

And to return to things, since verily

In constant flux do all things stream.

Likewise,

The abounding well-spring of the liquid light,

The ethereal sun, doth flood the heaven o'er

With constant flux of radiance ever new,

And with fresh light supplies the place of light,

Upon the instant. For whatever effulgence

Hath first streamed off, no matter where it falls,

Is lost unto the sun. And this 'tis thine

To know from these examples: soon as clouds

Have first begun to under-pass the sun,

And, as it were, to rend the rays of light

In twain, at once the lower part of them

Is lost entire, and earth is overcast

Where'er the thunderheads are rolled along-

So know thou mayst that things forever need

A fresh replenishment of gleam and glow,

And each effulgence, foremost flashed forth,

Perisheth one by one. Nor otherwise

Can things be seen in sunlight, lest alway

The fountain-head of light supply new light.

Indeed your earthly beacons of the night,

The hanging lampions and the torches, bright

With darting gleams and dense with livid soot,

Do hurry in like manner to supply

With ministering heat new light amain;

Are all alive to quiver with their fires,-

Are so alive, that thus the light ne'er leaves

The spots it shines on, as if rent in twain:

So speedily is its destruction veiled

By the swift birth of flame from all the fires.

Thus, then, we must suppose that sun and moon

And stars dart forth their light from under-births

Ever and ever new, and whatso flames

First rise do perish always one by one-

Lest, haply, thou shouldst think they each endure

Inviolable.

Again, perceivest not

How stones are also conquered by Time?-

Not how the lofty towers ruin down,

And boulders crumble?- Not how shrines of gods

And idols crack outworn?- Nor how indeed

The holy Influence hath yet no power

There to postpone the Terminals of Fate,

Or headway make 'gainst Nature's fixed decrees?

Again, behold we not the monuments

Of heroes, now in ruins, asking us,

In their turn likewise, if we don't believe

They also age with eld? Behold we not

The rended basalt ruining amain

Down from the lofty mountains, powerless

To dure and dree the mighty forces there

Of finite time?- for they would never fall

Rended asudden, if from infinite Past

They had prevailed against all engin'ries

Of the assaulting aeons, with no crash.

Again, now look at This, which round, above,

Contains the whole earth in its one embrace:

If from itself it procreates all things-

As some men tell- and takes them to itself

When once destroyed, entirely must it be

Of mortal birth and body; for whate'er

From out itself giveth to other things

Increase and food, the same perforce must be

Minished, and then recruited when it takes

Things back into itself.

Besides all this,

If there had been no origin-in-birth

Of lands and sky, and they had ever been