Change, growth, decay, formation, disruption--these are the marks of all things.

"The war of first-beginnings waged from eternity is carried on with dubious issue: now here, now there, the life-bringing elements of things get the mastery, and are o'ermastered in turn; with the funeral wail blends the cry which babies raise when they enter the borders of light; and no night ever followed day, nor morning night, that heard not, mingling with the sickly infant's cries, the attendants' wailings on death and black funeral." Lucretius pictured the atoms of things as like the things perceived by the senses; he said that atoms of different kinds have different shapes, but the number of shapes is finite, because there is a limit to the number of different things we see, smell, taste, and handle; he implies, although I do not think he definitely asserts, that all atoms of one kind are identical in every respect.
We now know that many compounds exist which are formed by the union of the same quantities by weight of the same elements, and, nevertheless, differ in properties; modern chemistry explains this fact by saying that the properties of a substance depend, not only on the kind of atoms which compose the minute particles of a compound, and the number of atoms of each kind, but also on the mode of arrangement of the atoms.[3] The same doctrine was taught by Lucretius, two thousand years ago.

"It often makes a great difference," he said, "with what things, and in what positions the same first-beginnings are held in union, and what motions they mutually impart and receive." For instance, certain atoms may be so arranged at one time as to produce fire, and, at another time, the arrangement of the same atoms may be such that the result is a fir-tree.

The differences between the colours of things are said by Lucretius to be due to differences in the arrangements and motions of atoms.

As the colour of the sea when wind lashes it into foam is different from the colour when the waters are at rest, so do the colours of things change when the atoms whereof the things are composed change from one arrangement to another, or from sluggish movements to rapid and tumultuous motions.
[3] See the chapter _Molecular Architecture_ in the _Story of the Chemical Elements_.
Lucretius pictured a solid substance as a vast number of atoms squeezed closely together, a liquid as composed of not so many atoms less tightly packed, and a gas as a comparatively small number of atoms with considerable freedom of motion.