De Rerum Natura

As yet they knew not to enkindle fire

Against the cold, nor hairy pelts to use

And clothe their bodies with the spoils of beasts;

But huddled in groves, and mountain-caves, and woods,

And 'mongst the thickets hid their squalid backs,

When driven to flee the lashings of the winds

And the big rains. Nor could they then regard

The general good, nor did they know to use

In common any customs, any laws:

Whatever of booty fortune unto each

Had proffered, each alone would bear away,

By instinct trained for self to thrive and live.

And Venus in the forests then would link

The lovers' bodies; for the woman yielded

Either from mutual flame, or from the man's

Impetuous fury and insatiate lust,

Or from a bribe- as acorn-nuts, choice pears,

Or the wild berries of the arbute-tree.

And trusting wondrous strength of hands and legs,

They'd chase the forest-wanderers, the beasts;

And many they'd conquer, but some few they fled,

A-skulk into their hiding-places...

. . . . . .

With the flung stones and with the ponderous heft

Of gnarled branch. And by the time of night

O'ertaken, they would throw, like bristly boars,

Their wildman's limbs naked upon the earth,

Rolling themselves in leaves and fronded boughs.

Nor would they call with lamentations loud

Around the fields for daylight and the sun,

Quaking and wand'ring in shadows of the night;

But, silent and buried in a sleep, they'd wait

Until the sun with rosy flambeau brought

The glory to the sky. From childhood wont

Ever to see the dark and day begot

In times alternate, never might they be

Wildered by wild misgiving, lest a night

Eternal should possess the lands, with light

Of sun withdrawn forever. But their care

Was rather that the clans of savage beasts

Would often make their sleep-time horrible

For those poor wretches; and, from home y-driven,

They'd flee their rocky shelters at approach

Of boar, the spumy-lipped, or lion strong,

And in the midnight yield with terror up

To those fierce guests their beds of out-spread leaves.

And yet in those days not much more than now

Would generations of mortality

Leave the sweet light of fading life behind.

Indeed, in those days here and there a man,

More oftener snatched upon, and gulped by fangs,

Afforded the beasts a food that roared alive,

Echoing through groves and hills and forest-trees,

Even as he viewed his living flesh entombed

Within a living grave; whilst those whom flight

Had saved, with bone and body bitten, shrieked,

Pressing their quivering palms to loathsome sores,

With horrible voices for eternal death-

Until, forlorn of help, and witless what

Might medicine their wounds, the writhing pangs

Took them from life. But not in those far times

Would one lone day give over unto doom

A soldiery in thousands marching on

Beneath the battle-banners, nor would then

The ramping breakers of the main seas dash

Whole argosies and crews upon the rocks.

But ocean uprisen would often rave in vain,

Without all end or outcome, and give up

Its empty menacings as lightly too;

Nor soft seductions of a serene sea

Could lure by laughing billows any man

Out to disaster: for the science bold

Of ship-sailing lay dark in those far times.

Again, 'twas then that lack of food gave o'er

Men's fainting limbs to dissolution: now

'Tis plenty overwhelms. Unwary, they

Oft for themselves themselves would then outpour

The poison; now, with nicer art, themselves

They give the drafts to others.

Afterwards,

When huts they had procured and pelts and fire,

And when the woman, joined unto the man,

Withdrew with him into one dwelling place,

. . . . . .

Were known; and when they saw an offspring born

From out themselves, then first the human race

Began to soften. For 'twas now that fire

Rendered their shivering frames less staunch to bear,

Under the canopy of the sky, the cold;

And Love reduced their shaggy hardiness;

And children, with the prattle and the kiss,

Soon broke the parents' haughty temper down.

Then, too, did neighbours 'gin to league as friends,

Eager to wrong no more or suffer wrong,

And urged for children and the womankind

Mercy, of fathers, whilst with cries and gestures

They stammered hints how meet it was that all

Should have compassion on the weak. And still,

Though concord not in every wise could then

Begotten be, a good, a goodly part