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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, diffus'd

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 remov'd, lest fierce extremes
Contiguous might distemper the whole frame:
And heav'n he nam'd 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 involv'd,
Appear'd not over all the face of earth
Main ocean flow'd, not idle, but with warm
Prolific humour soft'ning all her globe,
Fermented the great mother to conceive,
Satiate with genial moisture, when God said,
Be gather'd now ye waters under heav'n
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 heav'd the tumid hills, so low
Down sunk a hollow bottom broad and deep,
Capacious bed of waters: thither 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 wat'ry 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 wand'ring, 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 th' earth
Put forth the verdant grass, herb yielding seed,
And fruit-tree yielding fruit 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, that sudden flow'r'd
Opening their various colours, and made gay
Her bosom, smelling sweet: and these scarce blown,
Forth flourish'd thick the clust'ring vine, forth crept
The smelling gourd, up stood the corny reed
Embattled in her field; and th' 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 gemm'd
Their blossoms: with high woods the hills were
crown'd,

With tufts the valley and each fountain side,
With borders long the rivers: that earth now
Seem'd like to heav'n, 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 th' earth

God made, and every herb, before it grew
On the green stem; God saw that it was good:
So ev❜n and morn recorded the third day.

Again the Almighty spake, Let there be lights
High in th' 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 heav'n
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 heav'n
T'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 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 heav'n thick as a field;
Of light by far the greater part he took,
Transplanted from her cloudy shrine, and plac'd
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 heav'n's high road; the grey
Dawn and the Pleiades before him danc'd,

Shedding sweet influence; less bright the moon,
But opposite in level'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,
Revolv'd on heav'n's great axle, and her reign
With thousand lesser lights dividual holds,
With thousand thousands 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 heav'n.
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
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 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
Bursting with kindly rupture forth disclos'd
Their callow young, but feather'd soon and fledge
They summ'd their pens,* and soaring the air sub-

lime

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 ways
Intelligent of seasons, and set forth

Their airy caravan high over seas

soon

Flying, and over lands with mutual wing
Easing their flight; 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
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 pennons, 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,
Evening and morn solemniz'd the fifth day,
The sixth, and of creation last, arose

"Summ'd their pens;" had their quills mature or full grown.

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