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 Heav'n'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 her bright luminaries that set and rose,
Glad Ev'ning 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 Heav'n. 390
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 the fowl be multiply'd on th' Earth. Forthwith the sounds and 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, and through groves
cor stray, or sporting with quick glance
the san their wav'd coats dropt with gold,
Pear 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 410
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 th❜ egg that soon
Bursting with kindly rupture forth disclos'd
Their callow young, but feather'd soon and fledge
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 aery 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
Flotes, 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 penons, tower
The mid aereal sky: others on ground
Walk'd firm: the crested cock, whose clarion sounds The silent hours, and th' other whose gay train Adorns him, color'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 th' Earth bring forth soul living in her kind,
Cattle and creeping things, and beast of th' Earth,
Each in their kind. The Earth obey'd, and strait
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,
The cattle in the fields and meadows
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 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 mold
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, 480
Streaking the ground with sinuous trace; not all
Minims of Nature; some of serpent kind,
Wondrous in length and corpulence, invol❜d
Their snaky folds, and added wings.
The parsimonious emmet, provident
Of future, in small room large heart inclos'd,
Pattern of just equality perhaps
Hereafter, join'd in her popular tribes
Of commonality: swarming next appear'd
The female bee, that feeds her husband drone 490
Deliciously, and builds her waxen cells
With honey stor'd: 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 Heav'n in all her glory shone, and roll'd Her motions, as the great first Mover's hand 500 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 indued With sanctity of reason, might erect His stature, and upright with front serene Govern the rest, self-knowing, and from thence 510 Magnanimous to correspond with Heav'n, 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, 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 breath'd The breath of life; in his own image he Created thee, in the image of God
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