De Rerum Natura

With colours and with odours excellent;

Whereafter follows arid Heat, and he

Companioned is by Ceres, dusty one,

And by the Etesian Breezes of the north;

Then cometh Autumn on, and with him steps

Lord Bacchus, and then other Seasons too

And other Winds do follow- the high roar

Of great Volturnus, and the Southwind strong

With thunder-bolts. At last earth's Shortest-Day

Bears on to men the snows and brings again

The numbing cold. And Winter follows her,

His teeth with chills a-chatter. Therefore, 'tis

The less a marvel, if at fixed time

A moon is thus begotten and again

At fixed time destroyed, since things so many

Can come to being thus at fixed time.

Likewise, the sun's eclipses and the moon's

Far occultations rightly thou mayst deem

As due to several causes. For, indeed,

Why should the moon be able to shut out

Earth from the light of sun, and on the side

To earthward thrust her high head under sun,

Opposing dark orb to his glowing beams-

And yet, at same time, one suppose the effect

Could not result from some one other body

Which glides devoid of light forevermore?

Again, why could not sun, in weakened state,

At fixed time for-lose his fires, and then,

When he has passed on along the air

Beyond the regions, hostile to his flames,

That quench and kill his fires, why could not he

Renew his light? And why should earth in turn

Have power to rob the moon of light, and there,

Herself on high, keep the sun hid beneath,

Whilst the moon glideth in her monthly course

Athrough the rigid shadows of the cone?-

And yet, at same time, some one other body

Not have the power to under-pass the moon,

Or glide along above the orb of sun,

Breaking his rays and outspread light asunder?

And still, if moon herself refulgent be

With her own sheen, why could she not at times

In some one quarter of the mighty world

Grow weak and weary, whilst she passeth through

Regions unfriendly to the beams her own?

And now to what remains!- Since I've resolved

By what arrangements all things come to pass

Through the blue regions of the mighty world,-

How we can know what energy and cause

Started the various courses of the sun

And the moon's goings, and by what far means

They can succumb, the while with thwarted light,

And veil with shade the unsuspecting lands,

When, as it were, they blink, and then again

With open eye survey all regions wide,

Resplendent with white radiance- I do now

Return unto the world's primeval age

And tell what first the soft young fields of earth

With earliest parturition had decreed

To raise in air unto the shores of light

And to entrust unto the wayward winds.

In the beginning, earth gave forth, around

The hills and over all the length of plains,

The race of grasses and the shining green;

The flowery meadows sparkled all aglow

With greening colour, and thereafter, lo,

Unto the divers kinds of trees was given

An emulous impulse mightily to shoot,

With a free rein, aloft into the air.

As feathers and hairs and bristles are begot

The first on members of the four-foot breeds

And on the bodies of the strong-y-winged,

Thus then the new Earth first of all put forth

Grasses and shrubs, and afterward begat

The mortal generations, there upsprung-

Innumerable in modes innumerable-

After diverging fashions. For from sky

These breathing-creatures never can have dropped,

Nor the land-dwellers ever have come up

Out of sea-pools of salt. How true remains,

How merited is that adopted name

Of earth- "The Mother!"- since from out the earth

Are all begotten. And even now arise

From out the loams how many living things-

Concreted by the rains and heat of the sun.

Wherefore 'tis less a marvel, if they sprang

In Long Ago more many, and more big,

Matured of those days in the fresh young years

Of earth and ether. First of all, the race

Of the winged ones and parti-coloured birds,

Hatched out in spring-time, left their eggs behind;

As now-a-days in summer tree-crickets

Do leave their shiny husks of own accord,

Seeking their food and living. Then it was

This earth of thine first gave unto the day

The mortal generations; for prevailed

Among the fields abounding hot and wet.

And hence, where any fitting spot was given,

There 'gan to grow womb-cavities, by roots

Affixed to earth. And when in ripened time