De Rerum Natura

Lucretius

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

  1. And more and more each day
  2. Would men more strong in sense, more wise in heart,
  3. Teach them to change their earlier mode and life
  4. By fire and new devices. Kings began
  5. Cities to found and citadels to set,
  6. As strongholds and asylums for themselves,
  7. And flocks and fields to portion for each man
  8. After the beauty, strength, and sense of each-
  9. For beauty then imported much, and strength
  10. Had its own rights supreme. Thereafter, wealth
  11. Discovered was, and gold was brought to light,
  12. Which soon of honour stripped both strong and fair;
  13. For men, however beautiful in form
  14. Or valorous, will follow in the main
  15. The rich man's party. Yet were man to steer
  16. His life by sounder reasoning, he'd own
  17. Abounding riches, if with mind content
  18. He lived by thrift; for never, as I guess,
  19. Is there a lack of little in the world.
  20. But men wished glory for themselves and power
  21. Even that their fortunes on foundations firm
  22. Might rest forever, and that they themselves,
  23. The opulent, might pass a quiet life-
  24. In vain, in vain; since, in the strife to climb
  25. On to the heights of honour, men do make
  26. Their pathway terrible; and even when once
  27. They reach them, envy like the thunderbolt
  28. At times will smite, O hurling headlong down
  29. To murkiest Tartarus, in scorn; for, lo,
  30. All summits, all regions loftier than the rest,
  31. Smoke, blasted as by envy's thunderbolts;
  32. So better far in quiet to obey,
  33. Than to desire chief mastery of affairs
  34. And ownership of empires. Be it so;
  35. And let the weary sweat their life-blood out
  36. All to no end, battling in hate along
  37. The narrow path of man's ambition;
  38. Since all their wisdom is from others' lips,
  39. And all they seek is known from what they've heard
  40. And less from what they've thought. Nor is this folly
  41. Greater to-day, nor greater soon to be,
  42. Than' twas of old.