Into being The clouds condense, when in this upper space Of the high heaven have gathered suddenly, As round they flew, unnumbered particles-World's rougher ones, which can, though interlinked With scanty couplings, yet be fastened firm, The one on other caught. These particles First cause small clouds to form; and, thereupon, These catch the one on other and swarm in a flock And grow by their conjoining, and by winds Are borne along, along, until collects The tempest fury. Happens, too, the nearer The mountain summits neighbour to the sky, The more unceasingly their far crags smoke With the thick darkness of swart cloud, because When first the mists do form, ere ever the eyes Can there behold them (tenuous as they be), The carrier-winds will drive them up and on Unto the topmost summits of the mountain;And then at last it happens, when they be In vaster throng upgathered, that they can By this very condensation lie revealed, And that at same time they are seen to surge From very vertex of the mountain up Into far ether. For very fact and feeling, As we up-climb high mountains, proveth clear That windy are those upward regions free.
Besides, the clothes hung-out along the shore, When in they take the clinging moisture, prove That nature lifts from over all the sea Unnumbered particles. Whereby the more 'Tis manifest that many particles Even from the salt upheavings of the main Can rise together to augment the bulk Of massed clouds. For moistures in these twain Are near akin. Besides, from out all rivers, As well as from the land itself, we see Up-rising mists and steam, which like a breath Are forced out from them and borne aloft, To curtain heaven with their murk, and make, By slow foregathering, the skiey clouds.
For, in addition, lo, the heat on high Of constellated ether burdens down Upon them, and by sort of condensation Weaveth beneath the azure firmament The reek of darkling cloud. It happens, too, That hither to the skies from the Beyond Do come those particles which make the clouds And flying thunderheads. For I have taught That this their number is innumerable And infinite the sum of the Abyss, And I have shown with what stupendous speed Those bodies fly and how they're wont to pass Amain through incommunicable space.
Therefore, 'tis not exceeding strange, if oft In little time tempest and darkness cover With bulking thunderheads hanging on high The oceans and the lands, since everywhere Through all the narrow tubes of yonder ether, Yea, so to speak, through all the breathing-holes Of the great upper-world encompassing, There be for the primordial elements Exits and entrances.
Now come, and how The rainy moisture thickens into being In the lofty clouds, and how upon the lands 'Tis then discharged in down-pour of large showers, I will unfold. And first triumphantly Will I persuade thee that up-rise together, With clouds themselves, full many seeds of water From out all things, and that they both increase-Both clouds and water which is in the clouds-In like proportion, as our frames increase In like proportion with our blood, as well As sweat or any moisture in our members.
Besides, the clouds take in from time to time Much moisture risen from the broad marine,-Whilst the winds bear them o'er the mighty sea, Like hanging fleeces of white wool. Thuswise, Even from all rivers is there lifted up Moisture into the clouds. And when therein The seeds of water so many in many ways Have come together, augmented from all sides, The close-jammed clouds then struggle to discharge Their rain-storms for a two-fold reason: lo, The wind's force crowds them, and the very excess Of storm-clouds (massed in a vaster throng)Giveth an urge and pressure from above And makes the rains out-pour. Besides when, too, The clouds are winnowed by the winds, or scattered Smitten on top by heat of sun, they send Their rainy moisture, and distil their drops, Even as the wax, by fiery warmth on top, Wasteth and liquefies abundantly.
But comes the violence of the bigger rains When violently the clouds are weighted down Both by their cumulated mass and by The onset of the wind. And rains are wont To endure awhile and to abide for long, When many seeds of waters are aroused, And clouds on clouds and racks on racks outstream In piled layers and are borne along From every quarter, and when all the earth Smoking exhales her moisture. At such a time When sun with beams amid the tempest-murk Hath shone against the showers of black rains, Then in the swart clouds there emerges bright The radiance of the bow.
And as to things Not mentioned here which of themselves do grow Or of themselves are gendered, and all things Which in the clouds condense to being- all, Snow and the winds, hail and the hoar-frosts chill, And freezing, mighty force- of lakes and pools The mighty hardener, and mighty check Which in the winter curbeth everywhere The rivers as they go- 'tis easy still, Soon to discover and with mind to see How they all happen, whereby gendered, When once thou well hast understood just what Functions have been vouchsafed from of old Unto the procreant atoms of the world.
Now come, and what the law of earthquakes is Hearken, and first of all take care to know That the under-earth, like to the earth around us, Is full of windy caverns all about;And many a pool and many a grim abyss She bears within her bosom, ay, and cliffs And jagged scarps; and many a river, hid Beneath her chine, rolls rapidly along Its billows and plunging boulders. For clear fact Requires that earth must be in every part Alike in constitution. Therefore, earth, With these things underneath affixed and set, Trembleth above, jarred by big down-tumblings, When time hath undermined the huge caves, The subterranean. Yea, whole mountains fall, And instantly from spot of that big jar There quiver the tremors far and wide abroad.