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 and glad morn crown'd the fourth
day.
And God said, Let the waters 27 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 bless'd them,
Be fruitful, multiply, and in the seas,
And lakes, and running streams, the waters
And let the fowl be multiplied on the earth. Forthwith the sounds and seas, each creek and
With fry innumerable swarm, and shoals
Of fish that with their fins, and shining scales,
Glide under the green wave, in sculls 25 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, 405
Show to the sun their waved coats dropt with
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, 411
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. Their callow young; but feather'd soon and
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, 425
In common, ranged 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
Her annual voyage, borne on winds; the air 431
Floats as they pass, fann'd with unnumber'd
plumes:
From branch to branch the smaller birds with
Solaced the woods, and spread their painted wings
Till even; nor then the solemn nightingale31 435
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 pennons, tower
The mid aereal 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
Each in their kind. The earth obey'd, and
Opening her fertile womb, teem'd at a birth Innumerous living creatures, perfect forms, Limb'd and full grown out of the ground up
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 upsprung. 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
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 dimension drew, 480
Streaking the ground with sinuous trace; not all
Minims of nature; some of serpent kind,
Wondrous 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, joined in her popular tribes
Of commonalty: swarming next appear'd
The female bee, that feeds her husband drone 490
Deliciously, and builds her waxen cells
With honey stored: the rest are numberless,
And thou their natures know'st, and gavest them
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 500 First wheel'd their course: earth in her rich at
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 505
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
Directed in devotion, to adore
And worship God Supreme, who made him chief Of all his works: therefore the Omnipotent
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