Cleomedis Meteora Graece et Latine (Balfour 1605)

And the elements do not betray them with dying marks, so poorly
Held. But from the blind cave of a dark prison
You rescue them, and return new lights to the ancient illumination.
For the things that lay unknown in Cecropian i.e., Athenian/Greek erasures
You cultivate, and bring forth adorned with Latin splendor,
Now published, which profited few in use.
All time is worn out by books, nor are counsels friendly to health,
Nor is another part of life given to the worn-out body,
Or to recalling the powers of the mind, it presses on.
Thus the hand, an emulator of the mind, is fervent for the papers:
Hardly finished with the first, it tires itself with a new mass.
Nothing is unattempted, that the study of virtue may always rise
Toward arduous things, and let another greater work now be moved
After the completed one, nor is it strong for all things
In the same way, through a path dense with shadows and darkness,
Unaccustomed and unknown to the crude crowd:
Which disturb the trembling and doubtful with various images,
Do not fill the senses of men, to whom Nature has given it
To wonder at the hidden things of things, not to know,
She removed the latent causes from the eyes: and insinuates them deep
Into the minds, to which a better spirit strikes the intimate parts,
And the fervent blood animates the breast.
Why alternate day for night, why with the setting sun
Does night gather shadows, and the air clouded with shadows,
Soon the thick clouds liquefy into rare fleeces.
Whence the dry crash beats the mountains and the rough winds,
Thus they strike: soon as they have settled, let the sailor cut the journey
Through the deep, connecting the rope to the land,
With the palms frequently attempting the rowing in order:
Whence the rumbling of the poles, and the murmur of blind fire
In the clouds, and whence the winding volumes of wandering flame,
And does the convex region labor with globes of flames?
What are the temperatures of the celestial ways and halls of the sun and moon,
By which the earth trembles with fear when struck?
What of the sea, by what genius does it move, which in a loose whirlpool
Now devouring all things swells, and settling into its accustomed
Bosom, resorbs itself with a languishing tide?
This is the love, this the study of the rising world, and by this art
The glory of the ancients shone forth, whose
Labor is not in the thin, nor is the exit inferior to every
Ingenuity, let the page of CLEOMEDES Greek astronomer provide a witness,
Which, with so many ages rolling by, sticks in deep
Dust, and in so many filthinesses consumed by decay.