De Rerum Natura

Lucretius

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

  1. Now come, and how
  2. The rainy moisture thickens into being
  3. In the lofty clouds, and how upon the lands
  4. 'Tis then discharged in down-pour of large showers,
  5. I will unfold. And first triumphantly
  6. Will I persuade thee that up-rise together,
  7. With clouds themselves, full many seeds of water
  8. From out all things, and that they both increase-
  9. Both clouds and water which is in the clouds-
  10. In like proportion, as our frames increase
  11. In like proportion with our blood, as well
  12. As sweat or any moisture in our members.
  13. Besides, the clouds take in from time to time
  14. Much moisture risen from the broad marine,-
  15. Whilst the winds bear them o'er the mighty sea,
  16. Like hanging fleeces of white wool. Thuswise,
  17. Even from all rivers is there lifted up
  18. Moisture into the clouds. And when therein
  19. The seeds of water so many in many ways
  20. Have come together, augmented from all sides,
  21. The close-jammed clouds then struggle to discharge
  22. Their rain-storms for a two-fold reason: lo,
  23. The wind's force crowds them, and the very excess
  24. Of storm-clouds (massed in a vaster throng)
  25. Giveth an urge and pressure from above
  26. And makes the rains out-pour. Besides when, too,
  27. The clouds are winnowed by the winds, or scattered
  28. Smitten on top by heat of sun, they send
  29. Their rainy moisture, and distil their drops,
  30. Even as the wax, by fiery warmth on top,
  31. Wasteth and liquefies abundantly.
  32. But comes the violence of the bigger rains
  33. When violently the clouds are weighted down
  34. Both by their cumulated mass and by
  35. The onset of the wind. And rains are wont
  36. To endure awhile and to abide for long,
  37. When many seeds of waters are aroused,
  38. And clouds on clouds and racks on racks outstream
  39. In piled layers and are borne along
  40. From every quarter, and when all the earth
  41. Smoking exhales her moisture. At such a time
  42. When sun with beams amid the tempest-murk
  43. Hath shone against the showers of black rains,
  44. Then in the swart clouds there emerges bright
  45. The radiance of the bow.
  46. And as to things
  47. Not mentioned here which of themselves do grow
  48. Or of themselves are gendered, and all things
  49. Which in the clouds condense to being- all,
  50. Snow and the winds, hail and the hoar-frosts chill,
  51. And freezing, mighty force- of lakes and pools
  52. The mighty hardener, and mighty check
  53. Which in the winter curbeth everywhere
  54. The rivers as they go- 'tis easy still,
  55. Soon to discover and with mind to see
  56. How they all happen, whereby gendered,
  57. When once thou well hast understood just what
  58. Functions have been vouchsafed from of old
  59. Unto the procreant atoms of the world.