To give light on the earth' and it was so.
And God made two great lights, great for their use
Το man, the greater to have rule by day,
The less by night altern; and made the stars
And set them in the firmament of heaven
To illuminate the earth, and rule the day
In their vicissitude, and rule the night,
And light from darkness to divide.
Surveying his great work, that it was good:
For of celestial bodies first the sun
A mighty sphere he fram'd, unlightsome first,
Though of ethereal mould; then form'd the moon
Globose, and every magnitude of stars,
And sow'd with stars the heaven thick as a field.
Of light by far the greater part he took,
Transplanted from her cloudy shrine, and plac'd 360
In the sun's orb, made porous to receive
And drink the liquid light, firm to retain
Her gather'd beams, great palace now of light.
Hither, as to their fountain, other stars
Repairing, in their golden urns draw light,
And hence the morning planet gilds her horns;
By tincture or reflection, they augment
Their small peculiar, though from human sight
So far remote, with diminution seen.
First in his east the glorious lamp was seen,
Regent of day, and all th' horizon round
Invested with bright rays, jocund to run
His longitude through heaven's high road; the gray
Dawn, and the Pleiades before him danc'd
Shedding sweet influence. Less bright the moon,
But opposite in levell'd west was set
His mirror, with full face borrowing her light
From him, for other light she needed none
In that aspect, and still that distance keeps
Till night, then in the east her turn she shines, 380
Revolv'd on Heaven's great axle, and her reign With thousand lesser lights dividual holds, With thousand thousand stars, that then appear'd Spangling the hemisphere. Then, first adorn'd With their bright luminaries that set and rose, Glad evening and glad morn crown'd the fourth day. "And God said, Let the waters generate, Reptile with spawn abundant, living soul; And let fowl fly above the earth, with wings - Display'd on th' open firmament of Heaven.' And God created the great whales, and each Soul living, each that crept, which plenteously The waters generated by their kinds, And every bird of wing after his kind;
And saw that it was good, and bless'd them, saying, 'Be fruitful, multiply, and in the seas,
And lakes, and running streams, the waters fill;
And let th' fowl be multiplied on th' earth.'
Fortwith the sounds and seas, each creek and bay,
With fry innumerable swarms, and shoals
Of fish, that with their fins and shining scales
Glide under the green wave, in sculls that oft
Bank the mid-sea: part single, or with mate,
Graze the sea-weed, their pasture, and through groves
Of coral stray, or sporting, with quick glance,
Show to the sun their wav'd coats, dropt with gold;
Or in their pearly shells at ease, attend
Moist nutriment, or under rocks their food
In jointed armour watch; on smooth the seal,
And bended dolphins, play; part huge of bulk
Wallowing unweildy, enormous in their gait,
Tempest the ocean. There leviathan,
Hugest of living creatures, on the deep,
Stretch'd like a promontory, sleeps or swims,
And seems a moving land, and at his gills
Draws in, and at his trunk spouts out, a sea.
Meanwhile the tepid caves, and fens, and shores,
Their brood as numerous hatch, from the egg
Bursting with kindly rupture, forth disclos'd
Their callow young, but, feather'd soon, and fledge, 420
They summ'd their pens, and, soaring th' air sublime,
With clang despis'd the ground, under a cloud
In prospect; there the eagle and the stork,
On cliffs and cedar tops their eyries build;
Part loosely wing the region, part more wise
In common, rang'd in figure wedge their way,
Intelligent of seasons, and set forth
Their airy caravan high over seas
Flying, and over lands with mutual wing
Easing their flight; so steers the prudent crane 430
Her annual voyage, borne on winds; the air
Floats, as they pass, fann'd with unnumber'd plumes.
From branch to branch the smaller birds with song
Solac'd the woods, and spread their painted wings
Till ev'n, nor then the solemn nightingale
Ceas'd warbling, but all night tun'd her soft lays:
Others on silver lakes and rivers bath'd
Their downy breast; the swan with arched neck
Between her white wings mantling proudly, rows
Her state with oary feet: yet oft they quit
The dank, and, rising on stiff pinions, tower
The mid aerial sky. Others on ground
Walk'd firm the crested cock, whose clarion sounds
The silent hours, and th' other, whose gay train
Adorns him, colour'd with the florid hue
Of rainbows and starry eyes. The waters thus
With fish replenish'd, and the air with fowl,
Ev'ning and morn solemniz'd the fifth day.
"The sixth, and of creation last, arose
With evening harps and matin, when God said, 450 'Let the earth bring forth fowl living in her kind
Cattle and creeping things, and beast of th' earth,
Each in their kind.' The earth obey'd, and straight,
Opening her fertile womb, teem'd at a birth
Innumerous living creatures, perfect forms,
Limb'd and full grown out of the ground up rose,
As from his lair, the wild beast, where he wons
In forrest wild, in thicket, brake, or den:
Among the trees in pairs they rose, they walk'd
The cattle in the fields and meadows green;
Those rare and solitary, these in flocks,
Pasturing at once, and in broad herds upsprung.
The grassy clods now calv'd, now half appear'd
The tawny lion, pawing to get free
His hinder parts, then springs, as broke from bonds, And rampant shakes his brinded
The libbard, and the tiger, as the mole
Rising, the crumbled earth above them threw
In hillocks; the swift stag from under ground
Bore up his branching head; scarce from his mould
Behemoth, biggest born of earth, upheav'd
471
His vastness: fleec'd the flocks, and bleating rose,
As plants; ambiguous between sea and land
The river horse and scaly crocodile.
At once came forth whatever creeps the ground,
Insect or worm: those wav'd their limber fans,
For wings, and smallest lineaments exact,
In all the liveries deck'd of summer's pride,
With spots of gold and purple, azure and green,
These as a line their long dimensions drew,
Streaking the ground with sinnuous trace: not all
Minims of nature: some of serpent kind,
Wond'rous in length and corpulence, involv'd
Their snaky folds, and added wings. First crept
The parsimonious emmet, provident
Of future, in small room large heart enclos'd,
Pattern of just equality perhaps
Hereafter, join'd in her popular tribes
Of commonalty; swarming next appear'd
The female bee, that feeds her husband drone
Deliciously, and builds her waxen cells
With honey stor'd. The rest are numberless,
And thou their natures know'st and gav'st them names,
Needless to thee repeated: nor unknown
The serpent, subtlest beast of all the field,
Of huge extent sometimes, with brazen eyes
And hairy mane terrific, though to thee
Not noxious, but obedient at thy call.
"Now Heaven in all her glory shone and roll'd
Her motions, as the great first Mover's hand
First wheel'd their course; earth in her rich attire
Consummate lovely smil'd; air, water, earth,
By fowl, fish, beast, was flown, was swum, was walk'd
Frequent; and of the sixth day yet remain'd;
There wanted yet the master-work, the end
Of all yet done; a creature who, not prone
And brute, as other creatures, but endued
With sanctity of reason, might erect
His stature, and upright, with front serene,
Govern the rest, self-knowing, and from thence
Magnanimous to correspond with Heaven,
But grateful to acknowledge whence his good
Descends, thither with heart, and voice, and eyes,
Directed in devotion, to adore
And worship God supreme, who made him chief
Of all his works; therefore th' Omnipotent
Eternal Father (for where is not he
Present?) thus to his Son audibly spake :
"Let us make now Man in our image, Mau
In our similitude, and let them rule
Over the fish and fowl of sea and air,
Beast of the field, and over all the earth,
And every creeping thing that creeps the ground.'
This said, he form'd thee Adam, thee, O Man!
|