De Rerum Natura

Lucretius

Lucretius. De Rerum Natura. William Ellery Leonard. E. P. Dutton. 1916.

  1. To which be added too,
  2. They squander powers and with the travail wane;
  3. Be added too, they spend their futile years
  4. Under another's beck and call; their duties
  5. Neglected languish and their honest name
  6. Reeleth sick, sick; and meantime their estates
  7. Are lost in Babylonian tapestries;
  8. And unguents and dainty Sicyonian shoes
  9. Laugh on her feet; and (as ye may be sure)
  10. Big emeralds of green light are set in gold;
  11. And rich sea-purple dress by constant wear
  12. Grows shabby and all soaked with Venus' sweat;
  13. And the well-earned ancestral property
  14. Becometh head-bands, coifs, and many a time
  15. The cloaks, or garments Alidensian
  16. Or of the Cean isle. And banquets, set
  17. With rarest cloth and viands, are prepared-
  18. And games of chance, and many a drinking cup,
  19. And unguents, crowns and garlands. All in vain,
  20. Since from amid the well-spring of delights
  21. Bubbles some drop of bitter to torment
  22. Among the very flowers- when haply mind
  23. Gnaws into self, now stricken with remorse
  24. For slothful years and ruin in baudels,
  25. Or else because she's left him all in doubt
  26. By launching some sly word, which still like fire
  27. Lives wildly, cleaving to his eager heart;
  28. Or else because he thinks she darts her eyes
  29. Too much about and gazes at another,-
  30. And in her face sees traces of a laugh.