What each can do, what each can never do;
  Since naught is changed, but all things so abide
  That ever the variegated birds reveal
  The spots or stripes peculiar to their kind,
  Spring after spring: thus surely all that is
  Must be composed of matter immutable.
  For if the primal germs in any wise
  Were open to conquest and to change, 'twould be
  Uncertain also what could come to birth
  And what could not, and by what law to each
  Its scope prescribed, its boundary stone that clings
  So deep in Time. Nor could the generations
  Kind after kind so often reproduce
  The nature, habits, motions, ways of life,
  Of their progenitors.
                                And then again,
  Since there is ever an extreme bounding point

  Of that first body which our senses now
  Cannot perceive: That bounding point indeed
  Exists without all parts, a minimum
  Of nature, nor was e'er a thing apart,
  As of itself,- nor shall hereafter be,
  Since 'tis itself still parcel of another,
  A first and single part, whence other parts
  And others similar in order lie
  In a packed phalanx, filling to the full
  The nature of first body: being thus
  Not self-existent, they must cleave to that
  From which in nowise they can sundered be.
  So primal germs have solid singleness,
  Which tightly packed and closely joined cohere
  By virtue of their minim particles-
  No compound by mere union of the same;
  But strong in their eternal singleness,
  Nature, reserving them as seeds for things,
  Permitteth naught of rupture or decrease.

    Moreover, were there not a minimum,
  The smallest bodies would have infinites,
  Since then a half-of-half could still be halved,
  With limitless division less and less.
  Then what the difference 'twixt the sum and least?
  None: for however infinite the sum,
  Yet even the smallest would consist the same
  Of infinite parts. But since true reason here
  Protests, denying that the mind can think it,
  Convinced thou must confess such things there are
  As have no parts, the minimums of nature.
  And since these are, likewise confess thou must
  That primal bodies are solid and eterne.
  Again, if Nature, creatress of all things,
  Were wont to force all things to be resolved
  Unto least parts, then would she not avail
  To reproduce from out them anything;
  Because whate'er is not endowed with parts
  Cannot possess those properties required
  Of generative stuff- divers connections,
  Weights, blows, encounters, motions, whereby things
  Forevermore have being and go on.
          CONFUTATION OF OTHER PHILOSOPHERS

    And on such grounds it is that those who held
  The stuff of things is fire, and out of fire
  Alone the cosmic sum is formed, are seen
  Mightily from true reason to have lapsed.
  Of whom, chief leader to do battle, comes
  That Heraclitus, famous for dark speech
  Among the silly, not the serious Greeks
  Who search for truth. For dolts are ever prone
  That to bewonder and adore which hides
  Beneath distorted words, holding that true
  Which sweetly tickles in their stupid ears,
  Or which is rouged in finely finished phrase.
  For how, I ask, can things so varied be,
  If formed of fire, single and pure? No whit
  'Twould help for fire to be condensed or thinned,
  If all the parts of fire did still preserve
  But fire's own nature, seen before in gross.
  The heat were keener with the parts compressed,
  Milder, again when severed or dispersed-
  And more than this thou canst conceive of naught
  That from such causes could become; much less
  Might earth's variety of things be born
  From any fires soever, dense or rare.
  This too: if they suppose a void in things,
  Then fires can be condensed and still left rare;
  But since they see such opposites of thought
  Rising against them, and are loath to leave
  An unmixed void in things, they fear the steep
  And lose the road of truth. Nor do they see,
  That, if from things we take away the void,
  All things are then condensed, and out of all
  One body made, which has no power to dart
  Swiftly from out itself not anything-
  As throws the fire its light and warmth around,
  Giving thee proof its parts are not compact.
  But if perhaps they think, in other wise,
  Fires through their combinations can be quenched
  And change their substance, very well: behold,