Forth flourish'd thick the clustering vine, forth crept
The smelling gourd, up stood the corny reed,
Embattled in her field; and the humble shrub,
And bush with frizzled hair implicit last
Rose, as in dance, the stately trees, and spread
Their blossoms: with high woods the hills were crown'd,
With tufts the valleys, and each fountain side,
With borders long the rivers; that earth now
Seem'd like to Heaven, a seat where Gods might dwell,
Or wander with delight, and love to haunt
Her sacred shades: though God had yet not rain'd
Upon the earth, and man to till the ground
None was; but from the earth a dewy mist
Went up, and watered all the ground, and each,
Plant of the field, which, ere it was in the earth,
God made, and every herb, before it grew
On the green stem; God saw that it was good:
So even and morn recorded the third day.
"Again the Almighty spake, Let there be lights,
High in the expanse of Heaven, to divide
The day from night; and let them be for signs,
For seasons, and for days, and circling years;
And let them be for lights, as I ordain
Their office, in the firmament of Heaven,
To give light on the earth;' and it was so.
And God made two great lights, great for their use
To 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. God saw
Surveying his great work, that it was good :
For of celestial bodies first the sun,
A mighty sphere, he framed, 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 placed
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 the 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
Revolved 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 & 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 the 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, & bless'd them, saying,
'Be fruitful, multiply, and in the seas,
And lakes, and running streams, the waters fill;
And let the fowl be multiply'd, on the earth.'
Forthwith the sounds seas, & each creek and bay,
With fry innumerable swarm, 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, & through groves
Of coral stray; or sporting, with quick glance
Show to the sun their waved 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 unwieldy, 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, that,
Bursting with kindly rupture, forth disclosed [soon
Their callow young; but feather'd soon, and fledge,
They summ'd their pens, & soaring the air sublime,
With clang despised 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, ranged 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
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
Solaced the woods, and spread their painted wings,
Till even, nor then the solemn nightingale
Ceased warbling, but all night tuned her soft lays :
Others, on silver lakes and rivers, bathed
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 the 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,
Evening and morn solemnized the fifth day.
"The sixth, and of creation last, arose
With evening harps and matin; when God said,
'Let the earth bring forth soul living in her kind,
Cattle, and creeping things, and beast of the 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 forest 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 up sprung. The grassy clods now calved; 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 mane; the ounce,
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, upheaved
His vastness: fleeced 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 waved 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,
Wonderous in length and corpulence, involved
Their snaky folds, and added wings. First crept
The parsimonious emmet, provident
Of future, in small room large heart enclosed,
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 stored: The rest are numberless,
And thou their natures know'st, and gav'st them
Needless to thee repeated; nor unknown [names,
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, smiled; 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 the Omnipotent
Eternal Father, for where is not he
Present? thus to his Son audibly spake.
"Let us make now Man in our image, Man
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!
Dust of the ground, and in thy nostrils breathed
The breath of life; in his own image he
Created thee, in the image of God
Express, and thou becamest a living soul.
Male he created thee; but thy consort
Female, for race; then bless'd mankind, & said,
Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth;
Subdue it, and throughout dominion hold,
Over fish of the sea, and fowl of the air,
And every living thing that moves on the earth.
Wherever thus created, for no place
Is yet distinct by name. Thence, as thou know'st,
He brought thee into this delicious grove,
This garden, planted with the trees of God,
Delectable both to behold and taste;
And freely all their pleasant fruit for food.
Gave thee; all sorts are here that all the earth
Variety without end; but of the tree, [yields,
Which tasted, works knowledge of good and evil,
Thou may'st not; in the day thou eat'st, thou diest:
Death is the penalty imposed; beware,
And govern well thy appetite, lest Sin
Surprise thee, and her black attendant Death.
"Here finish'd he; and all that he had made
View'd, and behold all was entirely good;
So even and morn accomplish'd the sixth day :
Yet not till the Creator, from his work
Desisting, though unwearied, up return'd,
Up to the Heaven of Heavens, his high abode,
Thence to behold this new-created world,
The addition of his empire, how it show'd
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