Substance Is Eternal
This terror, then, this darkness of the mind,Not sunrise with its flaring spokes of light,Nor glittering arrows of morning can disperse,But only Nature’s aspect and her law,Which, teaching us, hath this exordium:Nothing from nothing ever yet was born.Fear holds dominion over mortalityOnly because, seeing in land and skySo much the cause whereof no wise they know,Men think Divinities are working there.Meantime, when once we know from nothing stillNothing can be create, we shall divineMore clearly what we seek: those elementsFrom which alone all things created are,And how accomplished by no tool of Gods.Suppose all sprang from all things: any kindMight take its origin from any thing,No fixed seed required. Men from the seaMight rise, and from the land the scaly breed,And, fowl full fledged come bursting from the sky;The horned cattle, the herds and all the wildWould haunt with varying offspring tilth and waste;Nor would the same fruits keep their olden trees,But each might grow from any stock or limbBy chance and change. Indeed, and were there notFor each its procreant atoms, could things haveEach its unalterable mother old?But, since produced from fixed seeds are all,Each birth goes forth upon the shores of lightFrom its own stuff, from its own primal bodies.And all from all cannot become, becauseIn each resides a secret power its own.Again, why see we lavished o’er the landsAt spring the rose, at summer heat the corn,The vines that mellow when the autumn lures,If not because the fixed seeds of thingsAt their own season must together stream,And new creations only be revealedWhen the due times arrive and pregnant earthSafely may give unto the shores of lightHer tender progenies? But if from naughtWere their becoming, they would spring abroadSuddenly, unforeseen, in alien months,With no primordial germs, to be preservedFrom procreant unions at an adverse hour.Nor on the mingling of the living seedsWould space be needed for the growth of thingsWere life an increment of nothing: thenThe tiny babe forthwith would walk a man,And from the turf would leap a branching tree—Wonders unheard of; for, by Nature, eachSlowly increases from its lawful seed,And through that increase shall conserve its kind.Whence take the proof that things enlarge and feedFrom out their proper matter. Thus it comesThat earth, without her seasons of fixed rains,Could bear no produce such as makes us glad,And whatsoever lives, if shut from food,Prolongs its kind and guards its life no more.Thus easier ’tis to hold that many thingsHave primal bodies in common (as we seeThe single letters common to many words)Than aught exists without its origins.Moreover, why should Nature not prepareMen of a bulk to ford the seas afoot,Or rend the mighty mountains with their hands,Or conquer Time with length of days, if notBecause for all begotten things abidesThe changeless stuff, and what from that may springIs fixed forevermore? Lastly we seeHow far the tilled surpass the fields untilledAnd to the labour of our hands returnTheir more abounding crops; there are indeedWithin the earth primordial germs of things,Which, as the ploughshare turns the fruitful clodsAnd kneads the mould, we quicken into birth.Else would ye mark, without all toil of ours,Spontaneous generations, fairer forms.Confess then, naught from nothing can become,Since all must have their seeds, wherefrom to grow,Wherefrom to reach the gentle fields of air.Hence too it comes that Nature all dissolvesInto their primal bodies again, and naughtPerishes ever to annihilation.For, were aught mortal in its every part,Before our eyes it might be snatched awayUnto destruction; since no force were neededTo sunder its members and undo its bands.Whereas, of truth, because all things exist,With seed imperishable, Nature allowsDestruction nor collapse of aught, untilSome outward force may shatter by a blow,Or inward craft, entering its hollow cells,Dissolve it down. And more than this, if Time,That wastes with eld the works along the world,Destroy entire, consuming matter all,Whence then may Venus back to light of lifeRestore the generations kind by kind?Or how, when thus restored, may daedal EarthFoster and plenish with her ancient food,Which, kind by kind, she offers unto each?Whence may the water-springs, beneath the sea,Or inland rivers, far and wide away,Keep the unfathomable ocean full?And out of what does Ether feed the stars?For lapsed years and infinite age must elseHave eat all shapes of mortal stock away:But be it the Long Ago contained those germs,By which this sum of things recruited lives,Those same infallibly can never die,Nor nothing to nothing evermore return.And, too, the selfsame power might end alikeAll things, were they not still together heldBy matter eternal, shackled through its parts,Now more, now less. A touch might be enoughTo cause destruction. For the slightest forceWould loose the weft of things wherein no partWere of imperishable stock. But nowBecause the fastenings of primordial partsAre put together diversely and stuffIs everlasting, things abide the sameUnhurt and sure, until some power comes onStrong to destroy the warp and woof of each:Nothing returns to naught; but all returnAt their collapse to primal forms of stuff.Lo, the rains perish which Ether-father throwsDown to the bosom of Earth-mother; but thenUpsprings the shining grain, and boughs are greenAmid the trees, and trees themselves wax bigAnd lade themselves with fruits; and hence in turnThe 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 bulkAlong the joyous pastures whilst the dropsOf white ooze trickle from distended bags;Hence the young scamper on their weakling jointsAlong the tender herbs, fresh hearts afriskWith warm new milk. Thus naught of what so seemsPerishes utterly, since Nature everUpbuilds one thing from other, suffering naughtTo come to birth but through some other’s death.
And now, since I have taught that things cannotBe 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 beIn 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 plainsWith mighty trees, or scour the mountain topsWith forest-crackling blasts. Thus on they raveWith uproar shrill and ominous moan. The winds,’Tis clear, are sightless bodies sweeping throughThe 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 bulkBecoming a river of abounding floods,Which a wide downpour from the lofty hillsSwells with big showers, dashes headlong downFragments of woodland and whole branching trees;Nor can the solid bridges bide the shockAs on the waters whelm: the turbulent stream,Strong with a hundred rains, beats round the piers,Crashes with havoc, and rolls beneath its wavesDown-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 beforeAnd hurl to ground with still renewed assault,Or sometimes in their circling vortex seizeAnd bear in cones of whirlwind down the world:The winds are sightless bodies and naught else—Since both in works and ways they rival wellThe mighty rivers, the visible in form.Then too we know the varied smells of thingsYet 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 isSave 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 bitsToo small for eyes to see. Another case:A ring upon the finger thins awayAlong the under side, with years and suns;The drippings from the eaves will scoop the stone;The hooked ploughshare, though of iron, wastesAmid the fields insidiously. We viewThe rock-paved highways worn by many feet;And at the gates the brazen statues showTheir right hands leaner from the frequent touchOf 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 addLittle by little, constraining things to growIn due proportion, no gaze however keenOf these our eyes hath watched and known. No moreCan 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.