Divided: light the day, and darkness night,
He named. Thus was the first day even and morn Nor pass'd uncelebrated, nor unsung
By the celestial choirs, when orient light
Exhaling first from darkness they beheld;
Bithday of Heaven and Earth: with joy and shout
The hollow universal orb they fill'd,
And touch'd their golden harps, and hymning praised
God and his works; Creator him they sung,
Both when first evening was, and when first morn.
Again, God said, Let there be firmament
Amid the waters, and let it divide
The waters from the waters; and God made The firmament, expanse of liquid, pure, Transparent, elemental air, diffused
In circuit to the uttermost convex
Of this great round: partition firm and sure, The waters underneath from those above Dividing: for as Earth, so he the world Built on circumfluous waters calm, in wide Crystalline ocean, and the loud misrule Of Chaos far removed; lest fierce extremes Contiguous might distemper the whole frame: And Heaven he named the firmament: so even And morning chorus sung the second day.
The Earth was form'd, but, in the womb as yet Of waters, embryon immature involved, Appear'd not: over all the face of Earth Main ocean flow'd, not idle; but, with warm Prolific humor softening all her globe, Fermented the great mother to conceive, Satiate with genial moisture; when God said, Be gather'd now, ye waters under Heaven, Into one place, and let dry land appear. Immediately the mountains huge appear Emergent, and their broad bare backs upheave Into the clouds; their tops ascend the sky:
So high as heaved the tumid hills, so low Down sunk a hollow bottom broad and deep, Capacious bed of waters hither they Hasted with glad precipitance, uproll'd, As drops on dust conglobing from the dry: Part rise in crystal wall, or ridge direct,
For haste; such flight the great command impress'd On the swift floods! as armies at the call Of trumpet (for of armies thou hast heard) Troop to their standard; so the watery throng, Wave rolling after wave, where way they found, If steep with torrent rapture, if through plain, Soft-ebbing; nor withstood them rock or hill; But they, or under ground, or circuit wide With serpent error wandering, found their way, And on the washy ooze deep channels wore ; Easy, ere God had bid the ground be dry, All but within those banks, where rivers now Stream, and perpetual draw their humid train. The dry land Earth, and the great receptacle Of congregated waters he call'd seas;
And saw that it was good; and said, Let the Earth Put forth the verdant grass, herb yielding seed, And fruit-tree yielding uit after her kind,
Whose seed is in herself upon the Earth.
He scarce had said, when the bare Earth till then Desert and bare, unsightly, unadorn'd,
Brought forth the tender grass, whose verdure clad Her universal face with pleasant green;
Then herbs of every leaf, tha sudden flower'd Opening their various colors, and made gay Her bosom, smelling sweet: and these scarce blown Forth flourish'd thick the clustering vine, forth crept The swelling 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 branches hung with copious fruit, or gemed Their blossoms: with high woods the hills were crown'd With tufts the valleys, and each fountain side
With borders long the rivers: the 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 water'd 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 light 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 Globse, and every magnitude of stars,
And sow'd with stars the Heaven, thick as field: Of light by far the greater part he took, Transplanted from her cloudy shrine, and placed In the suns orb, made porous to receive
And drink the liquid light; firm to retain
Her gather'd beems, great palace now of light. Hither as to their fountain, other stars
Repairing, in their golden urns draw light, And hence the morning planet glides her horns; By tincture or reflection they augment Their small peculiar, though from he nan sight So far remote, with diminution seen. First in his east the glorious lamp was seen. Regent of day, and all the horizon round Invseted with bright rays, jocund to run
His longitude though Heaven's high road, the gray Dawn and the Pleiades before him danced, 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 turns 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 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 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, and blessed them saying, Be fruitful, multiply, and in the seas
And lakes and running streams that waters fill ; And let the fowl be multiplied on the Earth.
For with the sounds and seas, each creek and bay, With fry innumerable swarm, and shoals Of fish that with their fins and shining scales Glided under the green wave, in sculls that oft Banks the mid sea: part single, or with mate, Graze the seaweed their pasture, and through groves Of coral stray: or, sporting with quick glance, Show to the sun their waved coats dropp'd with gold; Or, in their pearly shells at case, attend
Moist nutriment: or under rocks their food In jointed armor watch: on smooth the seal And bended dolphins play part huge or bulk Wallowing unwieldy, enomous in their gait Tempest the ocean: there leviathan, Hugest of living creatures, on the deep Stretched like a promon ory sleep or swims, And sems 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 egg that soon Bursting with kindly rapture forth disclosed
Their callow young; but feather'd soon and fledge They summ'd their pens; and, 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 season, and set forth,
Their aery caravan, high over seas
Flying, 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
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