Once its growth ceases, the more particles Does it now shed around it and discharge On all sides: nor is food distributed Easily into all its veins, nor yet In quantity sufficient that therefrom A supply may continually rise up To compensate the copious emanations Which it exhales. For there is need of food To preserve all things by renewing them: Food must uphold, food sustain everything: Yet all is to no purpose, since the veins Fail to convey what should suffice, nor yet Does nature furnish all that is required. There is good reason therefore why all forms Should perish, when they are rarefied by flux Of atoms, and succumb to external blows, Since food must fail advanced age in the end, And atoms cease not ever from outside To buffet each thing till they wear it out And overpower it by beleaguering blows. In this way then it is that the walls too Of the great world from all sides shall be stormed And so collapsing crumble away to ruins. And even now already this world’s age Is broken, and the worn-out earth can scarce Create the tiniest animals, she who once Created every kind, and brought to birth The huge shapes of wild beasts. For, as I think, Neither did any golden rope let down The tribes of mortal creatures from the heights Of heaven on to the fields, nor did the sea Nor its waves beating on the rocks create them, But the same earth gave birth to them, which now Feeds them from her own breast. At first moreover Herself spontaneously did she create Flourishing crops and rich vines for mankind, Herself gave them sweet fruits and joyous pastures; Which now, though aided by our toil, scarce grow To any size. Thus we wear out our oxen And the strength of our peasants: we use up Our iron tools; yet hardly do we win A sustenance from the fields, so niggardly They grudge their produce and increase our toil. And now shaking his head the aged ploughman Sighs ever and anon, when he beholds The labours of his hands all spent in vain; And when with times past he compares the present, He praises often the fortune of his sire, Harping upon that ancient race of men Who rich in piety supported life Upon their narrow plots contentedly, Seeing the land allotted to each man Was far less in those days than now. So too The planter of the worn-out shrivelled vine Disconsolately inveighs against the march Of time, wearying heaven with complaints, And understands not how all things are wasting Little by little, and passing to the grave Tired out by lengthening age and lapse of days. BOOK III, lines 1-160