DE RERUM NATURA, LIBER PRIMUS: BOOK 1. LINES 176-209 by TITUS LUCRETIUS CARUS

Why only in the spring are roses borne?
Why ripens summer fruite, and Autumne corne?
But that all creatures are, at times disposed
By the due confluence of their seeds, disclosd
In fitting seasons, when the quickning earth
May give her tender ofspring a safe birth;
Which if they were of nothing made, would be
Suddaine productions, sprung uncerteinely
In seasons not their owne, for if there were
No principles, which by geniall councells are
Kept back from killing seasons, there would need
No space for growth, or junctures of the seed.
If creatures out of nothing sprung; for soe
Men sudenly would from small infants grow
Young shoots would trees become, but that all these
Are otherwise we know for by degrees
From certeine seeds they grow, & still reteine
Their owne kind in their growth, which makes it plaine
That all the creatures in this manner bred,
By their owne matter are encreast and fed.
To this, even as without due showers the ground
Cannot with new and happie births abound,
Soe without food no creatures nature can
Encrease their kind, or their owne lives susteine.
Wherefore of things, it rather may be sayd
As words are out of many letters made,
That common bodies doe their beings give
Then that ought without principles can live.
Lastly why should not nature frame a race
Of mighty men, outliving mortall space
Who on their feete could travell through the deepe,
And with their hands could levell mountains steepe,
But that a proper matter is assignd
To all things, which distinguisheth their kind.

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