Nature of Things | Page 6

on their weakling joints Along the
tender herbs, fresh hearts afrisk With warm new milk. Thus naught of
what so seems Perishes utterly, since Nature ever Upbuilds one thing
from other, suffering naught To come to birth but through some other's
death. . . . . . . And now, since I have taught that things cannot Be born
from nothing, nor the same, when born, To nothing be recalled, doubt
not my words, Because our eyes no primal germs perceive; For mark
those bodies which, though known to be In this our world, are yet
invisible: The winds infuriate lash our face and frame, Unseen, and
swamp huge ships and rend the clouds, Or, eddying wildly down,
bestrew the plains With mighty trees, or scour the mountain tops With
forest-crackling blasts. Thus on they rave With uproar shrill and
ominous moan. The winds, 'Tis clear, are sightless bodies sweeping
through The sea, the lands, the clouds along the sky, Vexing and
whirling and seizing all amain; And forth they flow and pile destruction
round, Even as the water's soft and supple bulk Becoming a river of
abounding floods, Which a wide downpour from the lofty hills Swells
with big showers, dashes headlong down Fragments of woodland and

whole branching trees; Nor can the solid bridges bide the shock As on
the waters whelm: the turbulent stream, Strong with a hundred rains,
beats round the piers, Crashes with havoc, and rolls beneath its waves
Down-toppled masonry and ponderous stone, Hurling away whatever
would oppose. Even so must move the blasts of all the winds, Which,
when they spread, like to a mighty flood, Hither or thither, drive things
on before And hurl to ground with still renewed assault, Or sometimes
in their circling vortex seize And bear in cones of whirlwind down the
world: The winds are sightless bodies and naught else- Since both in
works and ways they rival well The mighty rivers, the visible in form.
Then too we know the varied smells of things Yet never to our nostrils
see them come; With eyes we view not burning heats, nor cold, Nor are
we wont men's voices to behold. Yet these must be corporeal at the
base, Since thus they smite the senses: naught there is Save body,
having property of touch. And raiment, hung by surf-beat shore, grows
moist, The same, spread out before the sun, will dry; Yet no one saw
how sank the moisture in, Nor how by heat off-driven. Thus we know,
That moisture is dispersed about in bits Too small for eyes to see.
Another case: A ring upon the finger thins away Along the under side,
with years and suns; The drippings from the eaves will scoop the stone;
The hooked ploughshare, though of iron, wastes Amid the fields
insidiously. We view The rock-paved highways worn by many feet;
And at the gates the brazen statues show Their right hands leaner from
the frequent touch Of wayfarers innumerable who greet. We see how
wearing-down hath minished these, But just what motes depart at any
time, The envious nature of vision bars our sight. Lastly whatever days
and nature add Little by little, constraining things to grow In due
proportion, no gaze however keen Of these our eyes hath watched and
known. No more Can we observe what's lost at any time, When things
wax old with eld and foul decay, Or when salt seas eat under beetling
crags. Thus Nature ever by unseen bodies works. THE VOID
But yet creation's neither crammed nor blocked About by body: there's
in things a void- Which to have known will serve thee many a turn, Nor
will not leave thee wandering in doubt, Forever searching in the sum of
all, And losing faith in these pronouncements mine. There's place
intangible, a void and room. For were it not, things could in nowise
move; Since body's property to block and check Would work on all and

at an times the same. Thus naught could evermore push forth and go,
Since naught elsewhere would yield a starting place. But now through
oceans, lands, and heights of heaven, By divers causes and in divers
modes, Before our eyes we mark how much may move, Which, finding
not a void, would fail deprived Of stir and motion; nay, would then
have been Nowise begot at all, since matter, then, Had staid at rest, its
parts together crammed. Then too, however solid objects seem, They
yet are formed of matter mixed with void: In rocks and caves the
watery moisture seeps, And beady drops stand out like plenteous tears;
And food finds way through every frame that lives; The trees increase
and yield the season's fruit Because their food throughout the whole is
poured, Even from the deepest roots, through trunks