John Dryden brilliantly captured Lucretius' remarkable vision: . . . when the youthful pair more closely join, When hands in hands they lock, and thighs in thighs they twine; Just in the raging foam of full desire, When both press on, both murmur, both expire, They grip, they squeeze, their humid tongues they dart, As each would force their way to th'others heart. In vain; they only cruise about the coast. For bodies cannot pierce, nor be in bodies lost, As sure they strive to be, when both engage In that tumultuous momentary rage. So tangled in the nets of love they lie, Till man dissolves in that excess of joy.