Of verity, they'll laugh aloud, like men, Shaken asunder by a spasm of mirth, Or sprinkle with dewy tear-drops cheeks and chins, And have the cunning hardihood to say Much on the composition of the world, And in their turn inquire what elements They have themselves,- since, thus the same in kind As a whole mortal creature, even they Must also be from other elements, And then those others from others evermore-So that thou darest nowhere make a stop.
Oho, I'll follow thee until thou grant The seed (which here thou say'st speaks, laughs, and thinks)Is yet derived out of other seeds Which in their turn are doing just the same.
But if we see what raving nonsense this, And that a man may laugh, though not, forsooth, Compounded out of laughing elements, And think and utter reason with learn'd speech, Though not himself compounded, for a fact, Of sapient seeds and eloquent, why, then, Cannot those things which we perceive to have Their own sensation be composed as well Of intermixed seeds quite void of sense?
INFINITE WORLDS
Once more, we all from seed celestial spring, To all is that same father, from whom earth, The fostering mother, as she takes the drops Of liquid moisture, pregnant bears her broods-The shining grains, and gladsome shrubs and trees, And bears the human race and of the wild The generations all, the while she yields The foods wherewith all feed their frames and lead The genial life and propagate their kind;Wherefore she owneth that maternal name, By old desert. What was before from earth, The same in earth sinks back, and what was sent From shores of ether, that, returning home, The vaults of sky receive. Nor thus doth death So far annihilate things that she destroys The bodies of matter; but she dissipates Their combinations, and conjoins anew One element with others; and contrives That all things vary forms and change their colours And get sensations and straight give them o'er.
And thus may'st know it matters with what others And in what structure the primordial germs Are held together, and what motions they Among themselves do give and get; nor think That aught we see hither and thither afloat Upon the crest of things, and now a birth And straightway now a ruin, inheres at rest Deep in the eternal atoms of the world.
Why, even in these our very verses here It matters much with what and in what order Each element is set: the same denote Sky, and the ocean, lands, and streams, and sun;The same, the grains, and trees, and living things.
And if not all alike, at least the most-
But what distinctions by positions wrought!
And thus no less in things themselves, when once Around are changed the intervals between, The paths of matter, its connections, weights, Blows, clashings, motions, order, structure, shapes, The things themselves must likewise changed be.
Now to true reason give thy mind for us.
Since here strange truth is putting forth its might To hit thee in thine ears, a new aspect Of things to show its front. Yet naught there is So easy that it standeth not at first More hard to credit than it after is;And naught soe'er that's great to such degree, Nor wonderful so far, but all mankind Little by little abandon their surprise.
Look upward yonder at the bright clear sky And what it holds- the stars that wander o'er, The moon, the radiance of the splendour-sun:
Yet all, if now they first for mortals were, If unforeseen now first asudden shown, What might there be more wonderful to tell, What that the nations would before have dared Less to believe might be?- I fancy, naught-So strange had been the marvel of that sight.
The which o'erwearied to behold, to-day None deigns look upward to those lucent realms.
Then, spew not reason from thy mind away, Beside thyself because the matter's new, But rather with keen judgment nicely weigh;And if to thee it then appeareth true, Render thy hands, or, if 'tis false at last, Gird thee to combat. For my mind-of-man Now seeks the nature of the vast Beyond There on the other side, that boundless sum Which lies without the ramparts of the world, Toward which the spirit longs to peer afar, Toward which indeed the swift elan of thought Flies unencumbered forth.
Firstly, we find, Off to all regions round, on either side, Above, beneath, throughout the universe End is there none- as I have taught, as too The very thing of itself declares aloud, And as from nature of the unbottomed deep Shines clearly forth. Nor can we once suppose In any way 'tis likely, (seeing that space To all sides stretches infinite and free, And seeds, innumerable in number, in sum Bottomless, there in many a manner fly, Bestirred in everlasting motion there), That only this one earth and sky of ours Hath been create and that those bodies of stuff, So many, perform no work outside the same;Seeing, moreover, this world too hath been By nature fashioned, even as seeds of things By innate motion chanced to clash and cling-After they'd been in many a manner driven Together at random, without design, in vain-And as at last those seeds together dwelt, Which, when together of a sudden thrown, Should alway furnish the commencements fit Of mighty things- the earth, the sea, the sky, And race of living creatures. Thus, I say, Again, again, 'tmust be confessed there are Such congregations of matter otherwhere, Like this our world which vasty ether holds In huge embrace.
Besides, when matter abundant Is ready there, when space on hand, nor object Nor any cause retards, no marvel 'tis That things are carried on and made complete, Perforce. And now, if store of seeds there is So great that not whole life-times of the living Can count the tale...
