With neither hands nor eyes, those highways twain,
Whereby Belief drops into the minds of men.

But Dr. Symmons, one of the numerous translators of Virgil, said, with
some truth, that the adoption of blank verse only involves "a laborious
and doubtful struggle to escape from the fangs of prose."[34]

A good example of what can be done in this branch of literature is
furnished by Dryden. Lucretius[35] wrote:

Tu vero dubitabis et indignabere obire?
Mortua cui vita est prope iam vivo atque videnti,
Qui somno partem maiorem conteris aevi,
Et vigilans stertis nec somnia cernere cessas
Sollicitamque geris cassa formidine mentem
Nec reperire potes tibi quid sit saepe mali, cum
Ebrius urgeris multis miser undique curis,
Atque animi incerto fluitans errore vagaris.

Dryden's translation departs but slightly from the original text and at
the same time presents the ideas of Lucretius in rhythmical and
melodious English:

And thou, dost thou disdain to yield thy breath,
Whose very life is little more than death?
More than one-half by lazy sleep possest,
And when awake, thy soul but nods at best,
Day-dreams and sickly thoughts revolving in thy breast.
Eternal troubles haunt thy anxious mind,
Whose cause and case thou never hopest to find,