And part of the soil is called to wash away In storms and streams shave close and gnaw the rocks. Besides, whatever the earth feeds and grows Is restored to earth. And since she surely is The womb of all things and their common grave, Earth must dwindle, you see and take on growth again.

The highest summits and those elevated above the level of other things are mostly blasted by envy as by a thunderbolt.

Globed from the atoms falling slow or swift I see the suns, I see the systems lift Their forms; and even the systems and the suns Shall go back slowly to the eternal drift.

If anyone decided to call the sea Neptune, and corn Ceres, and to misapply the name of Bacchus rather than to give liquor its right name, so be it; and let him dub the round world "Mother of the Gods" so long as he is careful not really to infest his mind with base superstitions.

Sweet it is, when on the high seas the winds are lashing the waters, to gaze from the land on another's struggles.

Look at a man in the midst of doubt & danger and you will learn in his hour of adversity what he really is.

Such evil deeds could religion prompt.