Nothing returns to naught; but all return At their collapse to primal forms of stuff.
Lo, the rains perish which Ether-father throws Down to the bosom of Earth-mother; but then Upsprings the shining grain, and boughs are green Amid the trees, and trees themselves wax big And lade themselves with fruits; and hence in turn The race of man and all the wild are fed;Hence joyful cities thrive with boys and girls;And leafy woodlands echo with new birds;
Hence cattle, fat and drowsy, lay their bulk Along the joyous pastures whilst the drops Of white ooze trickle from distended bags;Hence the young scamper 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 and boughs;And voices pass the solid walls and fly Reverberant through shut doorways of a house;And stiffening frost seeps inward to our bones.
Which but for voids for bodies to go through 'Tis clear could happen in nowise at all.
Again, why see we among objects some Of heavier weight, but of no bulkier size?
Indeed, if in a ball of wool there be As much of body as in lump of lead, The two should weigh alike, since body tends To load things downward, while the void abides, By contrary nature, the imponderable.
Therefore, an object just as large but lighter Declares infallibly its more of void;Even as the heavier more of matter shows, And how much less of vacant room inside.
That which we're seeking with sagacious quest Exists, infallibly, commixed with things-The void, the invisible inane.