The same force and the same cause would destroy All things without distinction, were it not That an eternal substance held them fast, A substance interwoven part with part By bonds more or less close. For without doubt A mere touch would be cause enough for death, Seeing that any least amount of force Must needs dissolve the texture of such things, No one of which had an eternal body. But in fact since the mutual fastenings Between first elements are dissimilar, And their substance eternal, things endure With body uninjured, till some force arrives Strong enough to dissolve the texture of each. Therefore no single thing ever returns To nothing, but at their disruption all Pass back into the elements of matter. Lastly the rain showers perish, when the sky father Has flung them into the lap of mother earth. But then bright crops spring up luxuriantly; Boughs on the trees are green; the trees themselves Grow, and with fruits are laden: from this source Moreover both our own race and the race Of beasts are nourished; for this cause we see Glad towns teeming with children, leafy woods With young birds’ voices singing on all sides; For this cause cattle about the fertile meadows Wearied with fatness lay their bodies down, And from their swollen udders oozing falls The white milk stream; for this cause a new brood Bounds on weak limbs over the soft grass, frisking And gamboling, their young hearts with pure milk thrilled. None therefore of those things that seem to perish Utterly perishes, since nature forms One thing out of another, and permits Nothing to be begotten, unless first She has been recruited by another’s death.