De Rerum Natura

Lucretius

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

  1. To proceed apace,
  2. What sort of nature thunderbolts possess
  3. Is by their strokes made manifest and by
  4. The brand-marks of their searing heat on things,
  5. And by the scorched scars exhaling round
  6. The heavy fumes of sulphur. For all these
  7. Are marks, O not of wind or rain, but fire.
  8. Again, they often enkindle even the roofs
  9. Of houses and inside the very rooms
  10. With swift flame hold a fierce dominion.
  11. Know thou that nature fashioned this fire
  12. Subtler than fires all other, with minute
  13. And dartling bodies,- a fire 'gainst which there's naught
  14. Can in the least hold out: the thunderbolt,
  15. The mighty, passes through the hedging walls
  16. Of houses, like to voices or a shout,-
  17. Through stones, through bronze it passes, and it melts
  18. Upon the instant bronze and gold; and makes,
  19. Likewise, the wines sudden to vanish forth,
  20. The wine-jars intact,- because, ye see,
  21. Its heat arriving renders loose and porous
  22. Readily all the wine- jar's earthen sides,
  23. And winding its way within, it scattereth
  24. The elements primordial of the wine
  25. With speedy dissolution- process which
  26. Even in an age the fiery steam of sun
  27. Could not accomplish, however puissant he
  28. With his hot coruscations: so much more
  29. Agile and overpowering is this force.
  30. . . . . . .
  31. Now in what manner engendered are these things,
  32. How fashioned of such impetuous strength
  33. As to cleave towers asunder, and houses all
  34. To overtopple, and to wrench apart
  35. Timbers and beams, and heroes' monuments
  36. To pile in ruins and upheave amain,
  37. And to take breath forever out of men,
  38. And to o'erthrow the cattle everywhere,-
  39. Yes, by what force the lightnings do all this,
  40. All this and more, I will unfold to thee,
  41. Nor longer keep thee in mere promises.