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John Dryden (1631–1700). The Poems of John Dryden. 1913.

Translations

From Book the Fifth of Lucretius

THUS like a Sayler by a Tempest hurl’d

A shore, the Babe is shipwrack’d on the World:

Naked he lies, and ready to expire;

Helpless of all that humane wants require:

Expos’d upon unhospitable Earth,

From the first moment of his hapless Birth.

Straight with forebodeing cryes he fills the Room;

(Too true presages of his future doom.)

But Flocks, and Herds, and every Savage Beast,

By more indulgent Nature are increas’d,

They want no Rattles for their froward mood,

Nor Nurse to reconcile them to their food,

With broken words; nor Winter blasts they fear,

Nor change their habits with the changing year:

Nor, for their safety, Citadels prepare;

Nor forge the wicked Instruments of War:

Unlabour’d Earth her bounteous treasure grants,

And Nature’s lavish hand supplies their common wants.