Lucretius on life and death :: :: University of Virginia Library

Lucretius on life and death

In the metre of Omar Khayybam: To which are appended parallel passages from the original: By W. H. Mallock

Mallock, W. H. (1849-1923)

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LUCRETIUS ON LIFE AND DEATH

II.

III.

III

IV.

VI.

VII.

VII

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II

E tenebris tantis

I

Come unto me all ye that labour. Ye
Whose souls are heavy-laden, come to me,
And I will lead you forth by streams that heal,
And feed you with the truth that sets men free.

II

Not from myself, poor souls with fear foredone,
Not from myself I have it, but from one
At whose approach the lamps of all the wise
Fade and go out like stars before the sun.

III

I am the messenger of one that saith
His saving sentence through my humbler breath:
And would you know his gospel's name, 'tis this—
The healing gospel of the eternal death.

IV

A teacher he, the latchet of whose shoe
I am not worthy stooping to undo:
And on your aching brows and weary eyes
His saving sentence shall descend like dew.

V

For this is he that dared the almighty foe,
Looked up, and struck the Olympian blow for blow,
And dragged the phantom from his fancied skies—
The Samian Sage—the first of those that know.

VI

Him not the splintered lightnings, nor the roll
Of thunders daunted. Undismayed, his soul
Rose, and outsoared the thunder, plumbed the abyss,
And scanned the wheeling worlds from pole to pole;

VII

And from the abyss brought back for you and me
The secret that alone can set men free.
He showed us how the worlds and worlds began,
And what things can, and what things cannot be.

VIII

And as I hear his clarion, I—I too
See earth and heaven laid open to my view;
And lo, from earth and heaven the curse is gone,
And all the things that are, are born anew.

IX

Vision divine! Far off in crystal air,
What forms are these? The immortal Gods are there.
Ay—but what Gods? Not those that trembling men
Would bribe with offerings, and appease with prayer.

X

Far off they lie, where storm-winds never blow,
Nor ever storm-cloud moves across the glow;
Nor frost of winter nips them, nor their limbs
Feel the white fluttering of one plume of snow.

XI

At ease they dream, and make perpetual cheer
Far off. From them we nothing have to fear,
Nothing to hope. How should the calm ones hate?
The tearless know the meaning of a tear?

XII

We leave, we bless them, in their homes on high.
No atheist is my master, he, nor I:
But when I turn, and seek the stain of Hell
Which flames and smokes along the nadir sky,

XIII

Even as I gaze the ancient shapes of ill
Flicker and fade. From off the accursed hill
The huge stone melts. The Ixionian wheel
Rests, and the barkings of the hound are still.

XIV

The damned forbear to shriek, their wounds to bleed,
The fires to torture, and the worm to feed;
And stars are glittering through the rift, where once
The stream went wailing 'twixt its leagues of reed;

XV

And all the pageant goes; whilst I, with awe,
See in its place the things my master saw;
See in its place the three eternal things—
The only three—atoms and space and law.

XVI

Hearken, oh earth! Hearken, oh heavens bereft
Of your old gods, these ageless Fates are left,
Who are at once the makers and the made,
Who are at once the weavers and the weft.

XVII

All things but these arise and fail and fall,
From flowers to stars—the great things and the small;
Whilst the great Sum of all things rests the same,
The all-creating, all-devouring All.

XVIII

Oh you who with me, in my master's car,
Up from the dens of faith have risen afar,
Do not you see at last on yonder height
A light that burns and beacons like a star?

XIX

Do not you sniff the morning in our flight?
The air turns cool, the dusk team turns to white.
Night's coursers catch the morning on their manes;
The dews are on the pasterns of the night.

XX

At last we are near the secret, oh my friend.
Patience awhile! We soon shall reach the end—
The gospel of the everlasting death.
Incline your ear to reason, and attend.