De Rerum Natura

Lucretius

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

  1. Nor is there one sure cause revealed to men
  2. How the sun journeys from his summer haunts
  3. On to the mid-most winter turning-points
  4. In Capricorn, the thence reverting veers
  5. Back to solstitial goals of Cancer; nor
  6. How 'tis the moon is seen each month to cross
  7. That very distance which in traversing
  8. The sun consumes the measure of a year.
  9. I say, no one clear reason hath been given
  10. For these affairs. Yet chief in likelihood
  11. Seemeth the doctrine which the holy thought
  12. Of great Democritus lays down: that ever
  13. The nearer the constellations be to earth
  14. The less can they by whirling of the sky
  15. Be borne along, because those skiey powers
  16. Of speed aloft do vanish and decrease
  17. In under-regions, and the sun is thus
  18. Left by degrees behind amongst those signs
  19. That follow after, since the sun he lies
  20. Far down below the starry signs that blaze;
  21. And the moon lags even tardier than the sun:
  22. In just so far as is her course removed
  23. From upper heaven and nigh unto the lands,
  24. In just so far she fails to keep the pace
  25. With starry signs above; for just so far
  26. As feebler is the whirl that bears her on,
  27. (Being, indeed, still lower than the sun),
  28. In just so far do all the starry signs,
  29. Circling around, o'ertake her and o'erpass.
  30. Therefore it happens that the moon appears
  31. More swiftly to return to any sign
  32. Along the Zodiac, than doth the sun,
  33. Because those signs do visit her again
  34. More swiftly than they visit the great sun.
  35. It can be also that two streams of air
  36. Alternately at fixed periods
  37. Blow out from transverse regions of the world,
  38. Of which the one may thrust the sun away
  39. From summer-signs to mid-most winter goals
  40. And rigors of the cold, and the other then
  41. May cast him back from icy shades of chill
  42. Even to the heat-fraught regions and the signs
  43. That blaze along the Zodiac. So, too,
  44. We must suppose the moon and all the stars,
  45. Which through the mighty and sidereal years
  46. Roll round in mighty orbits, may be sped
  47. By streams of air from regions alternate.
  48. Seest thou not also how the clouds be sped
  49. By contrary winds to regions contrary,
  50. The lower clouds diversely from the upper?
  51. Then, why may yonder stars in ether there
  52. Along their mighty orbits not be borne
  53. By currents opposite the one to other?