And walking now 
In his own footprints, I do follow through 
His reasonings, and with pronouncements teach 
The covenant whereby all things are framed, 
How under that covenant they must abide 
Nor ever prevail to abrogate the aeons' 
Inexorable decrees- how (as we've found), 
In class of mortal objects, o'er all else, 
The mind exists of earth-born frame create 
And impotent unscathed to abide 
Across the mighty aeons, and how come 
In sleep those idol-apparitions 
That so befool intelligence when we 
Do seem to view a man whom life has left. 
Thus far we've gone; the order of my plan 
Hath brought me now unto the point where I 
Must make report how, too, the universe 
Consists of mortal body, born in time, 
And in what modes that congregated stuff 
Established itself as earth and sky, 
Ocean, and stars, and sun, and ball of moon; 
And then what living creatures rose from out 
The old telluric places, and what ones 
Were never born at all; and in what mode 
The human race began to name its things 
And use the varied speech from man to man; 
And in what modes hath bosomed in their breasts 
That awe of gods, which halloweth in all lands 
Fanes, altars, groves, lakes, idols of the gods. 
Also I shall untangle by what power 
The steersman Nature guides the sun's courses, 
And the meanderings of the moon, lest we, 
Percase, should fancy that of own free will 
They circle their perennial courses round, 
Timing their motions for increase of crops 
And living creatures, or lest we should think 
They roll along by any plan of gods. 
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. 

But for the rest, lest we delay thee here 
Longer by empty promises- behold, 
Before all else, the seas, the lands, the sky: 
O Memmius, their threefold nature, lo, 
Their bodies three, three aspects so unlike, 
Three frames so vast, a single day shall give 
Unto annihilation! Then shall crash 
That massive form and fabric of the world 
Sustained so many aeons! Nor do I 
Fail to perceive how strange and marvellous 
This fact must strike the intellect of man,- 
Annihilation of the sky and earth 
That is to be,- and with what toil of words 
'Tis mine to prove the same; as happens oft 
When once ye offer to man's listening ears 
Something before unheard of, but may not 
Subject it to the view of eyes for him 
Nor put it into hand- the sight and touch, 
Whereby the opened highways of belief 
Lead most directly into human breast 
And regions of intelligence. But yet 
I will speak out. The fact itself, perchance, 
Will force belief in these my words, and thou 
Mayst see, in little time, tremendously 
With risen commotions of the lands all things 
Quaking to pieces- which afar from us 
May she, the steersman Nature, guide: and may 
Reason, O rather than the fact itself, 
Persuade us that all things can be o'erthrown 
And sink with awful-sounding breakage down! 

But ere on this I take a step to utter 
Oracles holier and soundlier based 
Than ever the Pythian pronounced for men 
From out the tripod and the Delphian laurel, 
I will unfold for thee with learned words 
Many a consolation, lest perchance, 
Still bridled by religion, thou suppose 
Lands, sun, and sky, sea, constellations, moon, 
Must dure forever, as of frame divine- 
And so conclude that it is just that those, 
(After the manner of the Giants), should all 
Pay the huge penalties for monstrous crime, 
Who by their reasonings do overshake 
The ramparts of the universe and wish 
There to put out the splendid sun of heaven, 
Branding with mortal talk immortal things- 
Though these same things are even so far removed 
From any touch of deity and seem 
So far unworthy of numbering with the gods, 
That well they may be thought to furnish rather 
A goodly instance of the sort of things 
That lack the living motion, living sense. 
For sure 'tis quite beside the mark to think 
That judgment and the nature of the mind 
In any kind of body can exist- 
Just as in ether can't exist a tree, 
Nor clouds in the salt sea, nor in the fields 
Can fishes live, nor blood in timber be, 
Nor sap in boulders: fixed and arranged 
Where everything may grow and have its place. 
Thus nature of mind cannot arise alone 
Without the body, nor have its being far