It seems strange to me that the Romans should have had such astonishing poets: Horace, Ovid, Catullus, Propertius. It was hardly a poetic culture. But they did.
Joanna
So with that here's one of my favorite poetic passages. It is from Ovid, The Metamorphosis, Book Fifteen, Pythagoras, beginning with Line 177:
``Full sail, I voyage Over the boundless sea, and I tell you Nothing is permanent in all the world. All things are fluent, every image forms, Wandering through change. Time is itself a river In constant movement, and the hours flow by Like water, wave on wave, pursued, pursuing, Forever fugitive, forever new. That which has been, is not, that which was not, Begins to be, motion and moment always In process of renewal. Look the night, Worn out, aims toward the brightness, and sun's glory Succeeds the dark. The color of the sky Is different at midnight, when tired things Lie all at rest, from what it is at morning When Lucifer rides his snowy horse, before Aurora paints the sky for Phoebus' coming, The shield of the god reddens at early morning, Reddens at evening, but is white at noonday In purer air, farther from the earth's contagion. And the Moon-goddess changes in the nightime, Lesser today than yesterday, if waning, Greater tomorrow than today, when crescent.''
(Rolf Humphries tanslation)
^^^^^ CB:That's dialectics. On Rome as poetic culture, think Virgil.