De Rerum Natura

Lucretius

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

  1. Nor can the sun's wheel larger be by much
  2. Nor its own blaze much less than either seems
  3. Unto our senses. For from whatso spaces
  4. Fires have the power on us to cast their beams
  5. And blow their scorching exhalations forth
  6. Against our members, those same distances
  7. Take nothing by those intervals away
  8. From bulk of flames; and to the sight the fire
  9. Is nothing shrunken. Therefore, since the heat
  10. And the outpoured light of skiey sun
  11. Arrive our senses and caress our limbs,
  12. Form too and bigness of the sun must look
  13. Even here from earth just as they really be,
  14. So that thou canst scarce nothing take or add.
  15. And whether the journeying moon illuminate
  16. The regions round with bastard beams, or throw
  17. From off her proper body her own light,-
  18. Whichever it be, she journeys with a form
  19. Naught larger than the form doth seem to be
  20. Which we with eyes of ours perceive. For all
  21. The far removed objects of our gaze
  22. Seem through much air confused in their look
  23. Ere minished in their bigness. Wherefore, moon,
  24. Since she presents bright look and clear-cut form,
  25. May there on high by us on earth be seen
  26. Just as she is with extreme bounds defined,
  27. And just of the size. And lastly, whatso fires
  28. Of ether thou from earth beholdest, these
  29. Thou mayst consider as possibly of size
  30. The least bit less, or larger by a hair
  31. Than they appear- since whatso fires we view
  32. Here in the lands of earth are seen to change
  33. From time to time their size to less or more
  34. Only the least, when more or less away,
  35. So long as still they bicker clear, and still
  36. Their glow's perceived.