And all from all cannot become, because
  In each resides a secret power its own.
  Again, why see we lavished o'er the lands
  At spring the rose, at summer heat the corn,
  The vines that mellow when the autumn lures,
  If not because the fixed seeds of things
  At their own season must together stream,
  And new creations only be revealed
  When the due times arrive and pregnant earth
  Safely may give unto the shores of light
  Her tender progenies? But if from naught
  Were their becoming, they would spring abroad
  Suddenly, unforeseen, in alien months,
  With no primordial germs, to be preserved
  From procreant unions at an adverse hour.
  Nor on the mingling of the living seeds
  Would space be needed for the growth of things
  Were life an increment of nothing: then
  The tiny babe forthwith would walk a man,
  And from the turf would leap a branching tree-
  Wonders unheard of; for, by Nature, each
  Slowly increases from its lawful seed,
  And through that increase shall conserve its kind.
  Whence take the proof that things enlarge and feed
  From out their proper matter. Thus it comes
  That earth, without her seasons of fixed rains,
  Could bear no produce such as makes us glad,
  And whatsoever lives, if shut from food,
  Prolongs its kind and guards its life no more.
  Thus easier 'tis to hold that many things
  Have primal bodies in common (as we see
  The single letters common to many words)
  Than aught exists without its origins.
  Moreover, why should Nature not prepare
  Men of a bulk to ford the seas afoot,
  Or rend the mighty mountains with their hands,
  Or conquer Time with length of days, if not
  Because for all begotten things abides
  The changeless stuff, and what from that may spring
  Is fixed forevermore? Lastly we see
  How far the tilled surpass the fields untilled
  And to the labour of our hands return
  Their more abounding crops; there are indeed
  Within the earth primordial germs of things,
  Which, as the ploughshare turns the fruitful clods
  And kneads the mould, we quicken into birth.
  Else would ye mark, without all toil of ours,
  Spontaneous generations, fairer forms.
  Confess then, naught from nothing can become,
  Since all must have their seeds, wherefrom to grow,
  Wherefrom to reach the gentle fields of air.
    Hence too it comes that Nature all dissolves
  Into their primal bodies again, and naught
  Perishes ever to annihilation.
  For, were aught mortal in its every part,
  Before our eyes it might be snatched away
  Unto destruction; since no force were needed
  To sunder its members and undo its bands.
  Whereas, of truth, because all things exist,
  With seed imperishable, Nature allows
  Destruction nor collapse of aught, until
  Some outward force may shatter by a blow,
  Or inward craft, entering its hollow cells,
  Dissolve it down. And more than this, if Time,
  That wastes with eld the works along the world,
  Destroy entire, consuming matter all,
  Whence then may Venus back to light of life
  Restore the generations kind by kind?
  Or how, when thus restored, may daedal Earth
  Foster and plenish with her ancient food,
  Which, kind by kind, she offers unto each?
  Whence may the water-springs, beneath the sea,
  Or inland rivers, far and wide away,
  Keep the unfathomable ocean full?
  And out of what does Ether feed the stars?
  For lapsed years and infinite age must else
  Have eat all shapes of mortal stock away:
  But be it the Long Ago contained those germs,
  By which this sum of things recruited lives,
  Those same infallibly can never die,
  Nor nothing to nothing evermore return.
  And, too, the selfsame power might end alike
  All things, were they not still together held
  By matter eternal, shackled through its parts,
  Now more, now less. A touch might be enough
  To cause destruction. For the slightest force
  Would loose the weft of things wherein no part
  Were of imperishable stock. But now
  Because the fastenings of primordial parts
  Are put together diversely and stuff
  Is everlasting, things abide the same
  Unhurt and sure, until some power comes on
  Strong to destroy the warp and woof of each:
  Nothing returns to naught; but all return
  At their collapse to primal forms of stuff.
  Lo, the rains perish which Ether-father throws
  Down to the bosom of Earth-mother; but then
  Upsprings the shining grain, and boughs are green
  Amid the trees, and trees themselves wax big
  And lade themselves with fruits; and hence in turn