The Infinity of the Universe

By Lucretius

Now learn of what remains! More keenly hear! 

And for myself, my mind is not deceived 

How dark it is: But the large hope of praise 

Hath strook with pointed thyrsus through my heart; 

On the same hour hath strook into my breast 

Sweet love of the Muses, wherewith now instinct, 

I wander afield, thriving in sturdy thought, 

Through unpathed haunts of the Pierides, 

Trodden by step of none before. I joy 

To come on undefiled fountains there, 

To drain them deep; I joy to pluck new flowers, 

To seek for this my head a signal crown 

From regions where the Muses never yet 

Have garlanded the temples of a man: 

First, since I teach concerning mighty things, 

And go right on to loose from round the mind 

The tightened coils of dread religion; 

Next, since, concerning themes so dark, I frame 

Songs so pellucid, touching all throughout 

Even with the Muses' charm- which, as 'twould seem, 

Is not without a reasonable ground: 

But as physicians, when they seek to give 

Young boys the nauseous wormwood, first do touch 

The brim around the cup with the sweet juice 

And yellow of the boney, in order that 

The thoughtless age of boyhood be cajoled 

As far as the lips, and meanwhile swallow down 

The wormwood's bitter draught, and, though befooled 

Be yet not merely duped, but rather thus 

Grow strong again with recreated health: 

So now I too (since this my doctrine seems 

In general somewhat woeful unto those 

Who've had it not in hand, and since the crowd 

Starts back from it in horror) have desired 

To expound our doctrine unto thee in song 

Soft-speaking and Pierian, and, as 'twere, 

To touch it with sweet honey of the Muse- 

If by such method haply I might hold 

The mind of thee upon these lines of ours, 

Till thou see through the nature of all things, 

And how exists the interwoven frame.