De Rerum Natura

Lucretius

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

  1. But sun and moon, those watchmen of the world,
  2. With their own lanterns traversing around
  3. The mighty, the revolving vault, have taught
  4. Unto mankind that seasons of the years
  5. Return again, and that the Thing takes place
  6. After a fixed plan and order fixed.
  7. Already would they pass their life, hedged round
  8. By the strong towers; and cultivate an earth
  9. All portioned out and boundaried; already
  10. Would the sea flower and sail-winged ships;
  11. Already men had, under treaty pacts,
  12. Confederates and allies, when poets began
  13. To hand heroic actions down in verse;
  14. Nor long ere this had letters been devised-
  15. Hence is our age unable to look back
  16. On what has gone before, except where reason
  17. Shows us a footprint.
  18. Sailings on the seas,
  19. Tillings of fields, walls, laws, and arms, and roads,
  20. Dress and the like, all prizes, all delights
  21. Of finer life, poems, pictures, chiselled shapes
  22. Of polished sculptures- all these arts were learned
  23. By practice and the mind's experience,
  24. As men walked forward step by eager step.
  25. Thus time draws forward each and everything
  26. Little by little into the midst of men,
  27. And reason uplifts it to the shores of light.
  28. For one thing after other did men see
  29. Grow clear by intellect, till with their arts
  30. They've now achieved the supreme pinnacle.