Are powerful to create, that thus it is No marvel now, if they have also fallen Into arrangements such, and if they've passed Into vibrations such, as those whereby This sum of things is carried on to-day By fixed renewal. But knew I never what The seeds primordial were, yet would I dare This to affirm, even from deep judgments based Upon the ways and conduct of the skies-- This to maintain by many a fact besides-- That in no wise the nature of all things For us was fashioned by a power divine-- So great the faults it stands encumbered with. First, mark all regions which are overarched By the prodigious reaches of the sky: One yawning part thereof the mountain-chains And forests of the beasts do have and hold; And cliffs, and desert fens, and wastes of sea (Which sunder afar the beaches of the lands) Possess it merely; and, again, thereof Well-nigh two-thirds intolerable heat And a perpetual fall of frost doth rob From mortal kind. And what is left to till, Even that the force of nature would o'errun With brambles, did not human force oppose,-- Long wont for livelihood to groan and sweat Over the two-pronged mattock and to cleave The soil in twain by pressing on the plough. ***** Unless, by the ploughshare turning the fruitful clods And kneading the mould, we quicken into birth, [The crops] spontaneously could not come up Into the free bright air. Even then sometimes, When things acquired by the sternest toil Are now in leaf, are now in blossom all, Either the skiey sun with baneful heats Parches, or sudden rains or chilling rime Destroys, or flaws of winds with furious whirl Torment and twist. Beside these matters, why Doth nature feed and foster on land and sea The dreadful breed of savage beasts, the foes Of the human clan? Why do the seasons bring Distempers with them? Wherefore stalks at large Death, so untimely? Then, again, the babe, Like to the castaway of the raging surf, Lies naked on the ground, speechless, in want Of every help for life, when nature first Hath poured him forth upon the shores of light With birth-pangs from within the mother's womb, And with a plaintive wail he fills the place,-- As well befitting one for whom remains In life a journey through so many ills. But all the flocks and herds and all wild beasts Come forth and grow, nor need the little rattles, Nor must be treated to the humouring nurse's Dear, broken chatter; nor seek they divers clothes To suit the changing skies; nor need, in fine, Nor arms, nor lofty ramparts, wherewithal Their own to guard--because the earth herself And nature, artificer of the world, bring forth Aboundingly all things for all. THE WORLD IS NOT ETERNAL