De Rerum Natura

And robs of glory his own images

By wound of violence?

But to return apace,

Easy it is from these same facts to know

In just what wise those things (which from their sort

The Greeks have named "bellows") do come down,

Discharged from on high, upon the seas.

For it haps that sometimes from the sky descends

Upon the seas a column, as if pushed,

Round which the surges seethe, tremendously

Aroused by puffing gusts; and whatso'er

Of ships are caught within that tumult then

Come into extreme peril, dashed along.

This haps when sometimes wind's aroused force

Can't burst the cloud it tries to, but down-weighs

That cloud, until 'tis like a column from sky

Upon the seas pushed downward- gradually,

As if a Somewhat from on high were shoved

By fist and nether thrust of arm, and lengthened

Far to the waves. And when the force of wind

Hath rived this cloud, from out the cloud it rushes

Down on the seas, and starts among the waves

A wondrous seething, for the eddying whirl

Descends and downward draws along with it

That cloud of ductile body. And soon as ever

'Thas shoved unto the levels of the main

That laden cloud, the whirl suddenly then

Plunges its whole self into the waters there

And rouses all the sea with monstrous roar,

Constraining it to seethe. It happens too

That very vortex of the wind involves

Itself in clouds, scraping from out the air

The seeds of cloud, and counterfeits, as 'twere,

The "bellows" pushed from heaven. And when this shape

Hath dropped upon the lands and burst apart,

It belches forth immeasurable might

Of whirlwind and of blast. Yet since 'tis formed

At most but rarely, and on land the hills

Must block its way, 'tis seen more oft out there

On the broad prospect of the level main

Along the free horizons.

Into being

The clouds condense, when in this upper space

Of the high heaven have gathered suddenly,

As round they flew, unnumbered particles-

World's rougher ones, which can, though interlinked

With scanty couplings, yet be fastened firm,

The one on other caught. These particles

First cause small clouds to form; and, thereupon,

These catch the one on other and swarm in a flock

And grow by their conjoining, and by winds

Are borne along, along, until collects

The tempest fury. Happens, too, the nearer

The mountain summits neighbour to the sky,

The more unceasingly their far crags smoke

With the thick darkness of swart cloud, because

When first the mists do form, ere ever the eyes

Can there behold them (tenuous as they be),

The carrier-winds will drive them up and on

Unto the topmost summits of the mountain;

And then at last it happens, when they be

In vaster throng upgathered, that they can

By this very condensation lie revealed,

And that at same time they are seen to surge

From very vertex of the mountain up

Into far ether. For very fact and feeling,

As we up-climb high mountains, proveth clear

That windy are those upward regions free.

Besides, the clothes hung-out along the shore,

When in they take the clinging moisture, prove

That nature lifts from over all the sea

Unnumbered particles. Whereby the more

'Tis manifest that many particles

Even from the salt upheavings of the main

Can rise together to augment the bulk

Of massed clouds. For moistures in these twain

Are near akin. Besides, from out all rivers,

As well as from the land itself, we see

Up-rising mists and steam, which like a breath

Are forced out from them and borne aloft,

To curtain heaven with their murk, and make,

By slow foregathering, the skiey clouds.

For, in addition, lo, the heat on high

Of constellated ether burdens down

Upon them, and by sort of condensation

Weaveth beneath the azure firmament

The reek of darkling cloud. It happens, too,

That hither to the skies from the Beyond

Do come those particles which make the clouds

And flying thunderheads. For I have taught

That this their number is innumerable

And infinite the sum of the Abyss,

And I have shown with what stupendous speed

Those bodies fly and how they're wont to pass

Amain through incommunicable space.

Therefore, 'tis not exceeding strange, if oft

In little time tempest and darkness cover

With bulking thunderheads hanging on high

The oceans and the lands, since everywhere

Through all the narrow tubes of yonder ether,