De Rerum Natura

And often, lounging with friends in the soft grass

Beside a river of water, underneath

A big tree's branches, merrily they'd refresh

Their frames, with no vast outlay- most of all

If the weather were smiling and the times of the year

Were painting the green of the grass around with flowers.

Then jokes, then talk, then peals of jollity

Would circle round; for then the rustic muse

Was in her glory; then would antic Mirth

Prompt them to garland head and shoulders about

With chaplets of intertwined flowers and leaves,

And to dance onward, out of tune, with limbs

Clownishly swaying, and with clownish foot

To beat our mother earth- from whence arose

Laughter and peals of jollity, for, lo,

Such frolic acts were in their glory then,

Being more new and strange. And wakeful men

Found solaces for their unsleeping hours

In drawing forth variety of notes,

In modulating melodies, in running

With puckered lips along the tuned reeds,

Whence, even in our day do the watchmen guard

These old traditions, and have learned well

To keep true measure. And yet they no whit

Do get a larger fruit of gladsomeness

Than got the woodland aborigines

In olden times. For what we have at hand-

If theretofore naught sweeter we have known-

That chiefly pleases and seems best of all;

But then some later, likely better, find

Destroys its worth and changes our desires

Regarding good of yesterday.

And thus

Began the loathing of the acorn; thus

Abandoned were those beds with grasses strewn

And with the leaves beladen. Thus, again,

Fell into new contempt the pelts of beasts-

Erstwhile a robe of honour, which, I guess,

Aroused in those days envy so malign

That the first wearer went to woeful death

By ambuscades,- and yet that hairy prize,

Rent into rags by greedy foemen there

And splashed by blood, was ruined utterly

Beyond all use or vantage. Thus of old

'Twas pelts, and of to-day 'tis purple and gold

That cark men's lives with cares and weary with war.

Wherefore, methinks, resides the greater blame

With us vain men to-day: for cold would rack,

Without their pelts, the naked sons of earth;

But us it nothing hurts to do without

The purple vestment, broidered with gold

And with imposing figures, if we still

Make shift with some mean garment of the Plebs.

So man in vain futilities toils on

Forever and wastes in idle cares his years-

Because, of very truth, he hath not learnt

What the true end of getting is, nor yet

At all how far true pleasure may increase.

And 'tis desire for better and for more

Hath carried by degrees mortality

Out onward to the deep, and roused up

From the far bottom mighty waves of war.

But sun and moon, those watchmen of the world,

With their own lanterns traversing around

The mighty, the revolving vault, have taught

Unto mankind that seasons of the years

Return again, and that the Thing takes place

After a fixed plan and order fixed.

Already would they pass their life, hedged round

By the strong towers; and cultivate an earth

All portioned out and boundaried; already

Would the sea flower and sail-winged ships;

Already men had, under treaty pacts,

Confederates and allies, when poets began

To hand heroic actions down in verse;

Nor long ere this had letters been devised-

Hence is our age unable to look back

On what has gone before, except where reason

Shows us a footprint.

Sailings on the seas,

Tillings of fields, walls, laws, and arms, and roads,

Dress and the like, all prizes, all delights

Of finer life, poems, pictures, chiselled shapes

Of polished sculptures- all these arts were learned

By practice and the mind's experience,

As men walked forward step by eager step.

Thus time draws forward each and everything

Little by little into the midst of men,

And reason uplifts it to the shores of light.

For one thing after other did men see

Grow clear by intellect, till with their arts

They've now achieved the supreme pinnacle.

'Twas Athens first, the glorious in name,

That whilom gave to hapless sons of men

The sheaves of harvest, and re-ordered life,

And decreed laws; and she the first that gave

Life its sweet solaces, when she begat

A man of heart so wise, who whilom poured

All wisdom forth from his truth-speaking mouth;

The glory of whom, though dead, is yet to-day,