De Rerum Natura
Lucretius
Lucretius. De Rerum Natura. William Ellery Leonard. E. P. Dutton. 1916.
- Now, then, of air
- I'll speak, which hour by hour in all its body
- Is changed innumerably. For whatso'er
- Streams up in dust or vapour off of things,
- The same is all and always borne along
- Into the mighty ocean of the air;
- And did not air in turn restore to things
- Bodies, and thus recruit them as they stream,
- All things by this time had resolved been
- And changed into air. Therefore it never
- Ceases to be engendered off of things
- And to return to things, since verily
- In constant flux do all things stream.