'Twas Athens first, the glorious in name,
     That whilom gave to hapless sons of men
     The sheaves of harvest, and re-ordered life,
     And decreed laws; and she the first that gave
     Life its sweet solaces, when she begat
     A man of heart so wise, who whilom poured
     All wisdom forth from his truth-speaking mouth;
     The glory of whom, though dead, is yet to-day,
     Because of those discoveries divine
     Renowned of old, exalted to the sky.
     For when saw he that well-nigh everything
     Which needs of man most urgently require
     Was ready to hand for mortals, and that life,
     As far as might be, was established safe,
     That men were lords in riches, honour, praise,
     And eminent in goodly fame of sons,
     And that they yet, O yet, within the home,
     Still had the anxious heart which vexed life
     Unpausingly with torments of the mind,
     And raved perforce with angry plaints, then he,
     Then he, the master, did perceive that 'twas
     The vessel itself which worked the bane, and all,
     However wholesome, which from here or there
     Was gathered into it, was by that bane
     Spoilt from within,—in part, because he saw
     The vessel so cracked and leaky that nowise
     'T could ever be filled to brim; in part because
     He marked how it polluted with foul taste
     Whate'er it got within itself. So he,
     The master, then by his truth-speaking words,
     Purged the breasts of men, and set the bounds
     Of lust and terror, and exhibited
     The supreme good whither we all endeavour,
     And showed the path whereby we might arrive
     Thereunto by a little cross-cut straight,
     And what of ills in all affairs of mortals
     Upsprang and flitted deviously about
     (Whether by chance or force), since nature thus
     Had destined; and from out what gates a man
     Should sally to each combat. And he proved
     That mostly vainly doth the human race
     Roll in its bosom the grim waves of care.
     For just as children tremble and fear all
     In the viewless dark, so even we at times
     Dread in the light so many things that be
     No whit more fearsome than what children feign,
     Shuddering, will be upon them in the dark.
     This terror then, this darkness of the mind,
     Not sunrise with its flaring spokes of light,
     Nor glittering arrows of morning can disperse,
     But only nature's aspect and her law.
     Wherefore the more will I go on to weave
     In verses this my undertaken task.

     And since I've taught thee that the world's great vaults
     Are mortal and that sky is fashioned
     Of frame e'en born in time, and whatsoe'er
     Therein go on and must perforce go on

     The most I have unravelled; what remains
     Do thou take in, besides; since once for all
     To climb into that chariot' renowned

     Of winds arise; and they appeased are
     So that all things again...

     Which were, are changed now, with fury stilled;
     All other movements through the earth and sky
     Which mortals gaze upon (O anxious oft
     In quaking thoughts!), and which abase their minds
     With dread of deities and press them crushed
     Down to the earth, because their ignorance
     Of cosmic causes forces them to yield
     All things unto the empery of gods
     And to concede the kingly rule to them.
     For even those men who have learned full well
     That godheads lead a long life free of care,
     If yet meanwhile they wonder by what plan
     Things can go on (and chiefly yon high things
     Observed o'erhead on the ethereal coasts),
     Again are hurried back unto the fears
     Of old religion and adopt again
     Harsh masters, deemed almighty,—wretched men,
     Unwitting what can be and what cannot,
     And by what law to each its scope prescribed,
     Its boundary stone that clings so deep in Time.
     Wherefore the more are they borne wandering on
     By blindfold reason. And, Memmius, unless
     From out thy mind thou spuest all of this
     And casteth far from thee all thoughts which be
     Unworthy gods and alien to their peace,
     Then often will the holy majesties
     Of the high gods be harmful unto thee,
     As by thy thought degraded,—not, indeed,
     That essence supreme of gods could be by this
     So outraged as in wrath to thirst to seek
     Revenges keen; but even because thyself
     Thou plaguest with the notion that the gods,
     Even they, the Calm Ones in serene repose,
     Do roll the mighty waves of wrath on wrath;
     Nor wilt thou enter with a serene breast
     Shrines of the gods; nor wilt thou able be
     In tranquil peace of mind to take and know
     Those images which from their holy bodies
     Are carried into intellects of men,
     As the announcers of their form divine.
     What sort of life will follow after this
     'Tis thine to see. But that afar from us
     Veriest reason may drive such life away,
     Much yet remains to be embellished yet
     In polished verses, albeit hath issued forth
     So much from me already; lo, there is
     The law and aspect of the sky to be
     By reason grasped; there are the tempest times
     And the bright lightnings to be hymned now—
     Even what they do and from what cause soe'er
     They're borne along—that thou mayst tremble not,
     Marking off regions of prophetic skies
     For auguries, O foolishly distraught
     Even as to whence the flying flame hath come,
     Or to which half of heaven it turns, or how
     Through walled places it hath wound its way,
     Or, after proving its dominion there,
     How it hath speeded forth from thence amain—
     Whereof nowise the causes do men know,
     And think divinities are working there.
     Do thou, Calliope, ingenious Muse,
     Solace of mortals and delight of gods,
     Point out the course before me, as I race
     On to the white line of the utmost goal,
     That I may get with signal praise the crown,
     With thee my guide!

                       And so in first place, then,
     With thunder are shaken the blue deeps of heaven,
     Because the ethereal clouds, scudding aloft,
     Together clash, what time 'gainst one another
     The winds are battling. For never a sound there comes
     From out the serene regions of the sky;
     But wheresoever in a host more dense
     The clouds foregather, thence more often comes
     A crash with mighty rumbling. And, again,
     Clouds cannot be of so condensed a frame
     As stones and timbers, nor again so fine
     As mists and flying smoke; for then perforce
     They'd either fall, borne down by their brute weight,
     Like stones, or, like the smoke, they'd powerless be
     To keep their mass, or to retain within
     Frore snows and storms of hail. And they give forth
     O'er skiey levels of the spreading world
     A sound on high, as linen-awning, stretched
     O'er mighty theatres, gives forth at times
     A cracking roar, when much 'tis beaten about
     Betwixt the poles and cross-beams. Sometimes, too,
     Asunder rent by wanton gusts, it raves
     And imitates the tearing sound of sheets
     Of paper—even this kind of noise thou mayst
     In thunder hear—or sound as when winds whirl
     With lashings and do buffet about in air
     A hanging cloth and flying paper-sheets.
     For sometimes, too, it chances that the clouds
     Cannot together crash head-on, but rather
     Move side-wise and with motions contrary
     Graze each the other's body without speed,
     From whence that dry sound grateth on our ears,
     So long drawn-out, until the clouds have passed
     From out their close positions.

                                    And, again,
     In following wise all things seem oft to quake
     At shock of heavy thunder, and mightiest walls
     Of the wide reaches of the upper world
     There on the instant to have sprung apart,
     Riven asunder, what time a gathered blast
     Of the fierce hurricane hath all at once
     Twisted its way into a mass of clouds,
     And, there enclosed, ever more and more
     Compelleth by its spinning whirl the cloud
     To grow all hollow with a thickened crust
     Surrounding; for thereafter, when the force
     And the keen onset of the wind have weakened
     That crust, lo, then the cloud, to-split in twain,
     Gives forth a hideous crash with bang and boom.
     No marvel this; since oft a bladder small,
     Filled up with air, will, when of sudden burst,
     Give forth a like large sound.

                                There's reason, too,
     Why clouds make sounds, as through them blow the winds:
     We see, borne down the sky, oft shapes of clouds
     Rough-edged or branched many forky ways;
     And 'tis the same, as when the sudden flaws
     Of north-west wind through the dense forest blow,
     Making the leaves to sough and limbs to crash.
     It happens too at times that roused force
     Of the fierce hurricane to-rends the cloud,
     Breaking right through it by a front assault;
     For what a blast of wind may do up there
     Is manifest from facts when here on earth
     A blast more gentle yet uptwists tall trees
     And sucks them madly from their deepest roots.
     Besides, among the clouds are waves, and these
     Give, as they roughly break, a rumbling roar;
     As when along deep streams or the great sea
     Breaks the loud surf. It happens, too, whenever
     Out from one cloud into another falls
     The fiery energy of thunderbolt,
     That straightaway the cloud, if full of wet,
     Extinguishes the fire with mighty noise;
     As iron, white from the hot furnaces,
     Sizzles, when speedily we've plunged its glow
     Down the cold water. Further, if a cloud
     More dry receive the fire, 'twill suddenly
     Kindle to flame and burn with monstrous sound,
     As if a flame with whirl of winds should range
     Along the laurel-tressed mountains far,
     Upburning with its vast assault those trees;
     Nor is there aught that in the crackling flame
     Consumes with sound more terrible to man
     Than Delphic laurel of Apollo lord.
     Oft, too, the multitudinous crash of ice
     And down-pour of swift hail gives forth a sound
     Among the mighty clouds on high; for when
     The wind hath packed them close, each mountain mass
     Of rain-cloud, there congealed utterly
     And mixed with hail-stones, breaks and booms...

     Likewise, it lightens, when the clouds have struck,
     By their collision, forth the seeds of fire:
     As if a stone should smite a stone or steel,
     For light then too leaps forth and fire then scatters
     The shining sparks. But with our ears we get
     The thunder after eyes behold the flash,
     Because forever things arrive the ears
     More tardily than the eyes—as thou mayst see
     From this example too: when markest thou
     Some man far yonder felling a great tree
     With double-edged ax, it comes to pass
     Thine eye beholds the swinging stroke before
     The blow gives forth a sound athrough thine ears:
     Thus also we behold the flashing ere
     We hear the thunder, which discharged is
     At same time with the fire and by same cause,
     Born of the same collision.

                                In following wise
     The clouds suffuse with leaping light the lands,
     And the storm flashes with tremulous elan:
     When the wind hath invaded a cloud, and, whirling there,
     Hath wrought (as I have shown above) the cloud
     Into a hollow with a thickened crust,
     It becomes hot of own velocity:
     Just as thou seest how motion will o'erheat
     And set ablaze all objects,—verily
     A leaden ball, hurtling through length of space,
     Even melts. Therefore, when this same wind a-fire
     Hath split black cloud, it scatters the fire-seeds,
     Which, so to say, have been pressed out by force
     Of sudden from the cloud;—and these do make
     The pulsing flashes of flame; thence followeth
     The detonation which attacks our ears
     More tardily than aught which comes along
     Unto the sight of eyeballs. This takes place—
     As know thou mayst—at times when clouds are dense
     And one upon the other piled aloft
     With wonderful upheavings—nor be thou
     Deceived because we see how broad their base
     From underneath, and not how high they tower.
     For make thine observations at a time
     When winds shall bear athwart the horizon's blue
     Clouds like to mountain-ranges moving on,
     Or when about the sides of mighty peaks
     Thou seest them one upon the other massed
     And burdening downward, anchored in high repose,
     With the winds sepulchred on all sides round:
     Then canst thou know their mighty masses, then
     Canst view their caverns, as if builded there
     Of beetling crags; which, when the hurricanes
     In gathered storm have filled utterly,
     Then, prisoned in clouds, they rave around
     With mighty roarings, and within those dens
     Bluster like savage beasts, and now from here,
     And now from there, send growlings through the clouds,
     And seeking an outlet, whirl themselves about,
     And roll from 'mid the clouds the seeds of fire,
     And heap them multitudinously there,
     And in the hollow furnaces within
     Wheel flame around, until from bursted cloud
     In forky flashes they have gleamed forth.

     Again, from following cause it comes to pass
     That yon swift golden hue of liquid fire
     Darts downward to the earth: because the clouds
     Themselves must hold abundant seeds of fire;
     For, when they be without all moisture, then
     They be for most part of a flamy hue
     And a resplendent. And, indeed, they must
     Even from the light of sun unto themselves
     Take multitudinous seeds, and so perforce
     Redden and pour their bright fires all abroad.
     And therefore, when the wind hath driven and thrust,
     Hath forced and squeezed into one spot these clouds,
     They pour abroad the seeds of fire pressed out,
     Which make to flash these colours of the flame.
     Likewise, it lightens also when the clouds
     Grow rare and thin along the sky; for, when
     The wind with gentle touch unravels them
     And breaketh asunder as they move, those seeds
     Which make the lightnings must by nature fall;
     At such an hour the horizon lightens round
     Without the hideous terror of dread noise
     And skiey uproar.

                         To proceed apace,
     What sort of nature thunderbolts possess
     Is by their strokes made manifest and by
     The brand-marks of their searing heat on things,
     And by the scorched scars exhaling round
     The heavy fumes of sulphur. For all these
     Are marks, O not of wind or rain, but fire.
     Again, they often enkindle even the roofs
     Of houses and inside the very rooms
     With swift flame hold a fierce dominion.
     Know thou that nature fashioned this fire
     Subtler than fires all other, with minute
     And dartling bodies,—a fire 'gainst which there's naught
     Can in the least hold out: the thunderbolt,
     The mighty, passes through the hedging walls
     Of houses, like to voices or a shout,—
     Through stones, through bronze it passes, and it melts
     Upon the instant bronze and gold; and makes,
     Likewise, the wines sudden to vanish forth,
     The wine-jars intact,—because, ye see,
     Its heat arriving renders loose and porous
     Readily all the wine—jar's earthen sides,
     And winding its way within, it scattereth
     The elements primordial of the wine
     With speedy dissolution—process which
     Even in an age the fiery steam of sun
     Could not accomplish, however puissant he
     With his hot coruscations: so much more
     Agile and overpowering is this force.

     Now in what manner engendered are these things,
     How fashioned of such impetuous strength
     As to cleave towers asunder, and houses all
     To overtopple, and to wrench apart
     Timbers and beams, and heroes' monuments
     To pile in ruins and upheave amain,
     And to take breath forever out of men,
     And to o'erthrow the cattle everywhere,—
     Yes, by what force the lightnings do all this,
     All this and more, I will unfold to thee,
     Nor longer keep thee in mere promises.

     The bolts of thunder, then, must be conceived
     As all begotten in those crasser clouds
     Up-piled aloft; for, from the sky serene
     And from the clouds of lighter density,
     None are sent forth forever. That 'tis so
     Beyond a doubt, fact plain to sense declares:
     To wit, at such a time the densed clouds
     So mass themselves through all the upper air
     That we might think that round about all murk
     Had parted forth from Acheron and filled
     The mighty vaults of sky—so grievously,
     As gathers thus the storm-clouds' gruesome might,
     Do faces of black horror hang on high—
     When tempest begins its thunderbolts to forge.
     Besides, full often also out at sea
     A blackest thunderhead, like cataract
     Of pitch hurled down from heaven, and far away
     Bulging with murkiness, down on the waves
     Falls with vast uproar, and draws on amain
     The darkling tempests big with thunderbolts
     And hurricanes, itself the while so crammed
     Tremendously with fires and winds, that even
     Back on the lands the people shudder round
     And seek for cover. Therefore, as I said,
     The storm must be conceived as o'er our head
     Towering most high; for never would the clouds
     O'erwhelm the lands with such a massy dark,
     Unless up-builded heap on lofty heap,
     To shut the round sun off. Nor could the clouds,
     As on they come, engulf with rain so vast
     As thus to make the rivers overflow
     And fields to float, if ether were not thus
     Furnished with lofty-piled clouds. Lo, then,
     Here be all things fulfilled with winds and fires—
     Hence the long lightnings and the thunders loud.
     For, verily, I've taught thee even now
     How cavernous clouds hold seeds innumerable
     Of fiery exhalations, and they must
     From off the sunbeams and the heat of these
     Take many still. And so, when that same wind
     (Which, haply, into one region of the sky
     Collects those clouds) hath pressed from out the same
     The many fiery seeds, and with that fire
     Hath at the same time inter-mixed itself,
     O then and there that wind, a whirlwind now,
     Deep in the belly of the cloud spins round
     In narrow confines, and sharpens there inside
     In glowing furnaces the thunderbolt.
     For in a two-fold manner is that wind
     Enkindled all: it trembles into heat
     Both by its own velocity and by
     Repeated touch of fire. Thereafter, when
     The energy of wind is heated through
     And the fierce impulse of the fire hath sped
     Deeply within, O then the thunderbolt,
     Now ripened, so to say, doth suddenly
     Splinter the cloud, and the aroused flash
     Leaps onward, lumining with forky light
     All places round. And followeth anon
     A clap so heavy that the skiey vaults,
     As if asunder burst, seem from on high
     To engulf the earth. Then fearfully a quake
     Pervades the lands, and 'long the lofty skies
     Run the far rumblings. For at such a time
     Nigh the whole tempest quakes, shook through and through,
     And roused are the roarings,—from which shock
     Comes such resounding and abounding rain,
     That all the murky ether seems to turn
     Now into rain, and, as it tumbles down,
     To summon the fields back to primeval floods:
     So big the rains that be sent down on men
     By burst of cloud and by the hurricane,
     What time the thunder-clap, from burning bolt
     That cracks the cloud, flies forth along. At times
     The force of wind, excited from without,
     Smiteth into a cloud already hot
     With a ripe thunderbolt. And when that wind
     Hath splintered that cloud, then down there cleaves forthwith
     Yon fiery coil of flame which still we call,
     Even with our fathers' word, a thunderbolt.
     The same thing haps toward every other side
     Whither that force hath swept. It happens, too,
     That sometimes force of wind, though hurtled forth
     Without all fire, yet in its voyage through space
     Igniteth, whilst it comes along, along,—
     Losing some larger bodies which cannot
     Pass, like the others, through the bulks of air,—
     And, scraping together out of air itself
     Some smaller bodies, carries them along,
     And these, commingling, by their flight make fire:
     Much in the manner as oft a leaden ball
     Grows hot upon its aery course, the while
     It loseth many bodies of stark cold
     And taketh into itself along the air
     New particles of fire. It happens, too,
     That force of blow itself arouses fire,
     When force of wind, a-cold and hurtled forth
     Without all fire, hath strook somewhere amain—
     No marvel, because, when with terrific stroke
     'Thas smitten, the elements of fiery-stuff
     Can stream together from out the very wind
     And, simultaneously, from out that thing
     Which then and there receives the stroke: as flies
     The fire when with the steel we hack the stone;
     Nor yet, because the force of steel's a-cold,
     Rush the less speedily together there
     Under the stroke its seeds of radiance hot.
     And therefore, thuswise must an object too
     Be kindled by a thunderbolt, if haply
     'Thas been adapt and suited to the flames.
     Yet force of wind must not be rashly deemed
     As altogether and entirely cold—
     That force which is discharged from on high
     With such stupendous power; but if 'tis not
     Upon its course already kindled with fire,
     It yet arriveth warmed and mixed with heat.

     And, now, the speed and stroke of thunderbolt
     Is so tremendous, and with glide so swift
     Those thunderbolts rush on and down, because
     Their roused force itself collects itself
     First always in the clouds, and then prepares
     For the huge effort of their going-forth;
     Next, when the cloud no longer can retain
     The increment of their fierce impetus,
     Their force is pressed out, and therefore flies
     With impetus so wondrous, like to shots
     Hurled from the powerful Roman catapults.
     Note, too, this force consists of elements
     Both small and smooth, nor is there aught that can
     With ease resist such nature. For it darts
     Between and enters through the pores of things;
     And so it never falters in delay
     Despite innumerable collisions, but
     Flies shooting onward with a swift elan.
     Next, since by nature always every weight
     Bears downward, doubled is the swiftness then
     And that elan is still more wild and dread,
     When, verily, to weight are added blows,
     So that more madly and more fiercely then
     The thunderbolt shakes into shivers all
     That blocks its path, following on its way.
     Then, too, because it comes along, along
     With one continuing elan, it must
     Take on velocity anew, anew,
     Which still increases as it goes, and ever
     Augments the bolt's vast powers and to the blow
     Gives larger vigour; for it forces all,
     All of the thunder's seeds of fire, to sweep
     In a straight line unto one place, as 'twere,—
     Casting them one by other, as they roll,
     Into that onward course. Again, perchance,
     In coming along, it pulls from out the air
     Some certain bodies, which by their own blows
     Enkindle its velocity. And, lo,
     It comes through objects leaving them unharmed,
     It goes through many things and leaves them whole,
     Because the liquid fire flieth along
     Athrough their pores. And much it does transfix,
     When these primordial atoms of the bolt
     Have fallen upon the atoms of these things
     Precisely where the intertwined atoms
     Are held together. And, further, easily
     Brass it unbinds and quickly fuseth gold,
     Because its force is so minutely made
     Of tiny parts and elements so smooth
     That easily they wind their way within,
     And, when once in, quickly unbind all knots
     And loosen all the bonds of union there.

     And most in autumn is shaken the house of heaven,
     The house so studded with the glittering stars,
     And the whole earth around—most too in spring
     When flowery times unfold themselves: for, lo,
     In the cold season is there lack of fire,
     And winds are scanty in the hot, and clouds
     Have not so dense a bulk. But when, indeed,
     The seasons of heaven are betwixt these twain,
     The divers causes of the thunderbolt
     Then all concur; for then both cold and heat
     Are mixed in the cross-seas of the year,
     So that a discord rises among things
     And air in vast tumultuosity
     Billows, infuriate with the fires and winds—
     Of which the both are needed by the cloud
     For fabrication of the thunderbolt.
     For the first part of heat and last of cold
     Is the time of spring; wherefore must things unlike
     Do battle one with other, and, when mixed,
     Tumultuously rage. And when rolls round
     The latest heat mixed with the earliest chill—
     The time which bears the name of autumn—then
     Likewise fierce cold-spells wrestle with fierce heats.
     On this account these seasons of the year
     Are nominated "cross-seas."—And no marvel
     If in those times the thunderbolts prevail
     And storms are roused turbulent in heaven,
     Since then both sides in dubious warfare rage
     Tumultuously, the one with flames, the other
     With winds and with waters mixed with winds.

     This, this it is, O Memmius, to see through
     The very nature of fire-fraught thunderbolt;
     O this it is to mark by what blind force
     It maketh each effect, and not, O not
     To unwind Etrurian scrolls oracular,
     Inquiring tokens of occult will of gods,
     Even as to whence the flying flame hath come,
     Or to which half of heaven it turns, or how
     Through walled places it hath wound its way,
     Or, after proving its dominion there,
     How it hath speeded forth from thence amain,
     Or what the thunderstroke portends of ill
     From out high heaven. But if Jupiter
     And other gods shake those refulgent vaults
     With dread reverberations and hurl fire
     Whither it pleases each, why smite they not
     Mortals of reckless and revolting crimes,
     That such may pant from a transpierced breast
     Forth flames of the red levin—unto men
     A drastic lesson?—why is rather he—
     O he self-conscious of no foul offence—
     Involved in flames, though innocent, and clasped
     Up-caught in skiey whirlwind and in fire?
     Nay, why, then, aim they at eternal wastes,
     And spend themselves in vain?—perchance, even so
     To exercise their arms and strengthen shoulders?
     Why suffer they the Father's javelin
     To be so blunted on the earth? And why
     Doth he himself allow it, nor spare the same
     Even for his enemies? O why most oft
     Aims he at lofty places? Why behold we
     Marks of his lightnings most on mountain tops?
     Then for what reason shoots he at the sea?—
     What sacrilege have waves and bulk of brine
     And floating fields of foam been guilty of?
     Besides, if 'tis his will that we beware
     Against the lightning-stroke, why feareth he
     To grant us power for to behold the shot?
     And, contrariwise, if wills he to o'erwhelm us,
     Quite off our guard, with fire, why thunders he
     Off in yon quarter, so that we may shun?
     Why rouseth he beforehand darkling air
     And the far din and rumblings? And O how
     Canst thou believe he shoots at one same time
     Into diverse directions? Or darest thou
     Contend that never hath it come to pass
     That divers strokes have happened at one time?
     But oft and often hath it come to pass,
     And often still it must, that, even as showers
     And rains o'er many regions fall, so too
     Dart many thunderbolts at one same time.
     Again, why never hurtles Jupiter
     A bolt upon the lands nor pours abroad
     Clap upon clap, when skies are cloudless all?
     Or, say, doth he, so soon as ever the clouds
     Have come thereunder, then into the same
     Descend in person, that from thence he may
     Near-by decide upon the stroke of shaft?
     And, lastly, why, with devastating bolt
     Shakes he asunder holy shrines of gods
     And his own thrones of splendour, and to-breaks
     The well-wrought idols of divinities,
     And robs of glory his own images
     By wound of violence?

                          But to return apace,
     Easy it is from these same facts to know
     In just what wise those things (which from their sort
     The Greeks have named "bellows") do come down,
     Discharged from on high, upon the seas.
     For it haps that sometimes from the sky descends
     Upon the seas a column, as if pushed,
     Round which the surges seethe, tremendously
     Aroused by puffing gusts; and whatso'er
     Of ships are caught within that tumult then
     Come into extreme peril, dashed along.
     This haps when sometimes wind's aroused force
     Can't burst the cloud it tries to, but down-weighs
     That cloud, until 'tis like a column from sky
     Upon the seas pushed downward—gradually,
     As if a Somewhat from on high were shoved
     By fist and nether thrust of arm, and lengthened
     Far to the waves. And when the force of wind
     Hath rived this cloud, from out the cloud it rushes
     Down on the seas, and starts among the waves
     A wondrous seething, for the eddying whirl
     Descends and downward draws along with it
     That cloud of ductile body. And soon as ever
     'Thas shoved unto the levels of the main
     That laden cloud, the whirl suddenly then
     Plunges its whole self into the waters there
     And rouses all the sea with monstrous roar,
     Constraining it to seethe. It happens too
     That very vortex of the wind involves
     Itself in clouds, scraping from out the air
     The seeds of cloud, and counterfeits, as 'twere,
     The "bellows" pushed from heaven. And when this shape
     Hath dropped upon the lands and burst apart,
     It belches forth immeasurable might
     Of whirlwind and of blast. Yet since 'tis formed
     At most but rarely, and on land the hills
     Must block its way, 'tis seen more oft out there
     On the broad prospect of the level main
     Along the free horizons.

                             Into being
     The clouds condense, when in this upper space
     Of the high heaven have gathered suddenly,
     As round they flew, unnumbered particles—
     World's rougher ones, which can, though interlinked
     With scanty couplings, yet be fastened firm,
     The one on other caught. These particles
     First cause small clouds to form; and, thereupon,
     These catch the one on other and swarm in a flock
     And grow by their conjoining, and by winds
     Are borne along, along, until collects
     The tempest fury. Happens, too, the nearer
     The mountain summits neighbour to the sky,
     The more unceasingly their far crags smoke
     With the thick darkness of swart cloud, because
     When first the mists do form, ere ever the eyes
     Can there behold them (tenuous as they be),
     The carrier-winds will drive them up and on
     Unto the topmost summits of the mountain;
     And then at last it happens, when they be
     In vaster throng upgathered, that they can
     By this very condensation lie revealed,
     And that at same time they are seen to surge
     From very vertex of the mountain up
     Into far ether. For very fact and feeling,
     As we up-climb high mountains, proveth clear
     That windy are those upward regions free.
     Besides, the clothes hung-out along the shore,
     When in they take the clinging moisture, prove
     That nature lifts from over all the sea
     Unnumbered particles. Whereby the more
     'Tis manifest that many particles
     Even from the salt upheavings of the main
     Can rise together to augment the bulk
     Of massed clouds. For moistures in these twain
     Are near akin. Besides, from out all rivers,
     As well as from the land itself, we see
     Up-rising mists and steam, which like a breath
     Are forced out from them and borne aloft,
     To curtain heaven with their murk, and make,
     By slow foregathering, the skiey clouds.
     For, in addition, lo, the heat on high
     Of constellated ether burdens down
     Upon them, and by sort of condensation
     Weaveth beneath the azure firmament
     The reek of darkling cloud. It happens, too,
     That hither to the skies from the Beyond
     Do come those particles which make the clouds
     And flying thunderheads. For I have taught
     That this their number is innumerable
     And infinite the sum of the Abyss,
     And I have shown with what stupendous speed
     Those bodies fly and how they're wont to pass
     Amain through incommunicable space.
     Therefore, 'tis not exceeding strange, if oft
     In little time tempest and darkness cover
     With bulking thunderheads hanging on high
     The oceans and the lands, since everywhere
     Through all the narrow tubes of yonder ether,
     Yea, so to speak, through all the breathing-holes
     Of the great upper-world encompassing,
     There be for the primordial elements
     Exits and entrances.

                          Now come, and how
     The rainy moisture thickens into being
     In the lofty clouds, and how upon the lands
     'Tis then discharged in down-pour of large showers,
     I will unfold. And first triumphantly
     Will I persuade thee that up-rise together,
     With clouds themselves, full many seeds of water
     From out all things, and that they both increase—
     Both clouds and water which is in the clouds—
     In like proportion, as our frames increase
     In like proportion with our blood, as well
     As sweat or any moisture in our members.
     Besides, the clouds take in from time to time
     Much moisture risen from the broad marine,—
     Whilst the winds bear them o'er the mighty sea,
     Like hanging fleeces of white wool. Thuswise,
     Even from all rivers is there lifted up
     Moisture into the clouds. And when therein
     The seeds of water so many in many ways
     Have come together, augmented from all sides,
     The close-jammed clouds then struggle to discharge
     Their rain-storms for a two-fold reason: lo,
     The wind's force crowds them, and the very excess
     Of storm-clouds (massed in a vaster throng)
     Giveth an urge and pressure from above
     And makes the rains out-pour. Besides when, too,
     The clouds are winnowed by the winds, or scattered
     Smitten on top by heat of sun, they send
     Their rainy moisture, and distil their drops,
     Even as the wax, by fiery warmth on top,
     Wasteth and liquefies abundantly.
     But comes the violence of the bigger rains
     When violently the clouds are weighted down
     Both by their cumulated mass and by
     The onset of the wind. And rains are wont
     To endure awhile and to abide for long,
     When many seeds of waters are aroused,
     And clouds on clouds and racks on racks outstream
     In piled layers and are borne along
     From every quarter, and when all the earth
     Smoking exhales her moisture. At such a time
     When sun with beams amid the tempest-murk
     Hath shone against the showers of black rains,
     Then in the swart clouds there emerges bright
     The radiance of the bow.

                             And as to things
     Not mentioned here which of themselves do grow
     Or of themselves are gendered, and all things
     Which in the clouds condense to being—all,
     Snow and the winds, hail and the hoar-frosts chill,
     And freezing, mighty force—of lakes and pools
     The mighty hardener, and mighty check
     Which in the winter curbeth everywhere
     The rivers as they go—'tis easy still,
     Soon to discover and with mind to see
     How they all happen, whereby gendered,
     When once thou well hast understood just what
     Functions have been vouchsafed from of old
     Unto the procreant atoms of the world.
     Now come, and what the law of earthquakes is
     Hearken, and first of all take care to know
     That the under-earth, like to the earth around us,
     Is full of windy caverns all about;
     And many a pool and many a grim abyss
     She bears within her bosom, ay, and cliffs
     And jagged scarps; and many a river, hid
     Beneath her chine, rolls rapidly along
     Its billows and plunging boulders. For clear fact
     Requires that earth must be in every part
     Alike in constitution. Therefore, earth,
     With these things underneath affixed and set,
     Trembleth above, jarred by big down-tumblings,
     When time hath undermined the huge caves,
     The subterranean. Yea, whole mountains fall,
     And instantly from spot of that big jar
     There quiver the tremors far and wide abroad.
     And with good reason: since houses on the street
     Begin to quake throughout, when jarred by a cart
     Of no large weight; and, too, the furniture
     Within the house up-bounds, when a paving-block
     Gives either iron rim of the wheels a jolt.
     It happens, too, when some prodigious bulk
     Of age-worn soil is rolled from mountain slopes
     Into tremendous pools of water dark,
     That the reeling land itself is rocked about
     By the water's undulations; as a basin
     Sometimes won't come to rest until the fluid
     Within it ceases to be rocked about
     In random undulations.

                               And besides,
     When subterranean winds, up-gathered there
     In the hollow deeps, bulk forward from one spot,
     And press with the big urge of mighty powers
     Against the lofty grottos, then the earth
     Bulks to that quarter whither push amain
     The headlong winds. Then all the builded houses
     Above ground—and the more, the higher up-reared
     Unto the sky—lean ominously, careening
     Into the same direction; and the beams,
     Wrenched forward, over-hang, ready to go.
     Yet dread men to believe that there awaits
     The nature of the mighty world a time
     Of doom and cataclysm, albeit they see
     So great a bulk of lands to bulge and break!
     And lest the winds blew back again, no force
     Could rein things in nor hold from sure career
     On to disaster. But now because those winds
     Blow back and forth in alternation strong,
     And, so to say, rallying charge again,
     And then repulsed retreat, on this account
     Earth oftener threatens than she brings to pass
     Collapses dire. For to one side she leans,
     Then back she sways; and after tottering
     Forward, recovers then her seats of poise.
     Thus, this is why whole houses rock, the roofs
     More than the middle stories, middle more
     Than lowest, and the lowest least of all.

     Arises, too, this same great earth-quaking,
     When wind and some prodigious force of air,
     Collected from without or down within
     The old telluric deeps, have hurled themselves
     Amain into those caverns sub-terrene,
     And there at first tumultuously chafe
     Among the vasty grottos, borne about
     In mad rotations, till their lashed force
     Aroused out-bursts abroad, and then and there,
     Riving the deep earth, makes a mighty chasm—
     What once in Syrian Sidon did befall,
     And once in Peloponnesian Aegium,
     Twain cities which such out-break of wild air
     And earth's convulsion, following hard upon,
     O'erthrew of old. And many a walled town,
     Besides, hath fall'n by such omnipotent
     Convulsions on the land, and in the sea
     Engulfed hath sunken many a city down
     With all its populace. But if, indeed,
     They burst not forth, yet is the very rush
     Of the wild air and fury-force of wind
     Then dissipated, like an ague-fit,
     Through the innumerable pores of earth,
     To set her all a-shake—even as a chill,
     When it hath gone into our marrow-bones,
     Sets us convulsively, despite ourselves,
     A-shivering and a-shaking. Therefore, men
     With two-fold terror bustle in alarm
     Through cities to and fro: they fear the roofs
     Above the head; and underfoot they dread
     The caverns, lest the nature of the earth
     Suddenly rend them open, and she gape,
     Herself asunder, with tremendous maw,
     And, all confounded, seek to chock it full
     With her own ruins. Let men, then, go on
     Feigning at will that heaven and earth shall be
     Inviolable, entrusted evermore
     To an eternal weal: and yet at times
     The very force of danger here at hand
     Prods them on some side with this goad of fear—
     This among others—that the earth, withdrawn
     Abruptly from under their feet, be hurried down,
     Down into the abyss, and the Sum-of-Things
     Be following after, utterly fordone,
     Till be but wrack and wreckage of a world.