De Rerum Natura

Lucretius

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

  1. But for the rest,- lest we delay thee here
  2. Longer by empty promises- behold,
  3. Before all else, the seas, the lands, the sky:
  4. O Memmius, their threefold nature, lo,
  5. Their bodies three, three aspects so unlike,
  6. Three frames so vast, a single day shall give
  7. Unto annihilation! Then shall crash
  8. That massive form and fabric of the world
  9. Sustained so many aeons! Nor do I
  10. Fail to perceive how strange and marvellous
  11. This fact must strike the intellect of man,-
  12. Annihilation of the sky and earth
  13. That is to be,- and with what toil of words
  14. 'Tis mine to prove the same; as happens oft
  15. When once ye offer to man's listening ears
  16. Something before unheard of, but may not
  17. Subject it to the view of eyes for him
  18. Nor put it into hand- the sight and touch,
  19. Whereby the opened highways of belief
  20. Lead most directly into human breast
  21. And regions of intelligence. But yet
  22. I will speak out. The fact itself, perchance,
  23. Will force belief in these my words, and thou
  24. Mayst see, in little time, tremendously
  25. With risen commotions of the lands all things
  26. Quaking to pieces- which afar from us
  27. May she, the steersman Nature, guide: and may
  28. Reason, O rather than the fact itself,
  29. Persuade us that all things can be o'erthrown
  30. And sink with awful-sounding breakage down!