Hinc alitur porro nostrum genus atque ferarum,
Hinc laetas urbes pueris florere videmus
Frondiferasque novis avibus canere undique silvas.[433]
Or we see the waters of a river lost in the sea and returning through the earth to their original source, and again flowing in a fresh stream along the channel first formed for them—
Inde super terras fluit agmine dulci
Qua via secta semel liquido pede detulit undas.[434]
Under the same law the earth is seen to be the parent of all things and their tomb (v. 259); the sea, which loses its substance through evaporation and the subsidence of its waters, is found to be ever renewed by its native sources and the abundant tribute of rivers (v. 267; i. 231; vi. 608); the air is ever giving away and receiving back its substance; the sun ('liquidi fons luminis'), moon, and stars, are ever losing and ever renewing their light. The day on which the 'long-sustained mass and fabric of the world' will pass away, leaving only void space and the viewless atoms, is destined to come suddenly through the termination of this long balanced warfare:—
Denique tantopere inter se cum maxima mundi
Pugnent membra, pio nequaquam concita bello,
Nonne vides aliquam longi certaminis ollis