LUCRETIUS: ATOMIC MOVEMENT

And now I’d like to show you how such tiny

Particulars are moving. Once atoms take shape

As something, no matter what it is, Nature



Will never allow it to rise without the help

Of something else. Nothing can lift itself.

Don’t let the hovering flame that seems composed



Of weightless particles fool you. All things are drawn

Inexorably to earth. And yet, we must also

Acknowledge that shining clusters of trees and crops



Have sprung from seeds, as if they were born to surge

Towards the sky. And just as a leaping flame

Can reach a roof-beam, and lick along the rafters



Until that voracious tongue devours the house,

So in the very same way a crimson spray

Of blood may gush from a wound, all but exultant



As it arches through the air. But don’t assume

That either the fire or the blood can ever do this

Spontaneously: they always need some other



Force to reinforce them. Haven’t you noticed

How powerfully a pool of water expels

Thick planks of wood? However many hands



Are shoving those planks down the water’s throat, the water

Insists on vomiting them back up at us—

As if it delighted in seeing the wood buoyant



Enough to break the surface by half a length.

(Though the wood could never have done this without the water.)

And yet, beyond a shadow of doubt, atoms



Are always streaming away, just dense enough

To sink in a vacuum, down and away they go

En masse through empty space. And fire, it stands



To reason, is no exception. Fire is a clear

Expression of something that strives to rise in the air

That shimmers around us. Yet light as fire is,



The weight of its atoms is heavy enough to drag

It down incessantly. Don’t you see how dark

The night would be without those blazing torches



Ascending the heavens? Yet even at the height

Of evening, their fiery wake only tracks the course

Laid out for them by Nature, from whose guidance



The torches of nightfall take their lead each night.

And when the night is over, isn’t it obvious

That all that’s left of all that impending gloom



Has dropped out of sight—along with all the stars

And the streaking meteors? As soon as the open fields

Have seen the light of day, the sun is already



Radiant enough to turn the farthest furrow

Golden by noon. And then the sun sinks back

To earth, as it must. Which only goes to show



That light, no matter how high it shines in the sky,

Is bound to descend, just like everything else.

Steeped in torrential rain, the lightning slants



Precipitously. But first it’s the glow of cloudburst,

Spreading like wildfire across the darkening sky

As it crackles overhead. Then the abrupt bolt



Flashes like rods of the fasces in thunder’s grip.

Lightning, as everyone should know by now,

Can strike at any place, and at any time.



Finally, there’s one more point regarding matter

That I wish to convey: even as atoms are falling

Through empty space, each one dropping down



Straight as a plumb line, and carried along by the pull

Of its own weight, at certain moments they swerve

Together ever so slightly, and though it’s just



Enough to say that a change in direction occurred,

There’s no predicting where and when it will happen.

And if this swerving never happened, then atoms



Would never collide with one another; and since

Creation depends on the unpredictable impact

Of colliding atoms, Nature would then have created



Nothing, though the atoms themselves would still

Be falling through empty space, falling like drops

Of rain falling by themselves forever.