So far remote, with diminution seen.
First in the east his 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 leveld west was set
His mirror, with full face borrowing her light
From hiin; for other light she needed none
In that aspect; and still that distance kceps
Till night, then in the east her turn she shines,
Revolv'd on Heav'n's great axle, and her reiga
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 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 Heaven.
And God created the great whales, and each
Soul living, each that crept, which plenteously
The waters generated by their kind,
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 coars dropt with gold;
Or in their pearly shells at ease, attend

Moist nutriment; or under rocks their food
In jointed arınour watch: on smooth the seal,
And bended dolphins play: part huge of buik
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 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
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 pary 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 starty 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 ev'ning harps and matin; when God said,
Let th’earth bring fortis soul living in fier kind,
Cattle, and creeping things, and beast of th' earth
Each in their kind. The earth obey'd, and straight
Op'ning her fertile womb, teein'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 herbs upsprung.
The grassy clods now calv'd, now half appear
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 tyger, as the more
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, upheav'd
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 liinber fans
For wings, and smallest lineaments exact
In all the liveries deck'd of summer's pride,
With spots of gold andi purple, azure and green:
These as a line their long diinension drew,
Streaking the ground with sinuous trace; not all
Minims of nature; soine of serpent-kind,
Wondfrous in length and corpulence, involvid
Their snaky folds, and added wings. First crept
The parsimonious eminel, provident

Of future, in: sinall room large heart inclos'd,
Pattern of just equality perhaps
Hereafter, joined in her popular tribes
of commonalty: swarming next appeard
The female bee, that feeds her lusband drone
Deliciously, and builds her waxen cells
With honey stor’d: the rest are numberless,
And thou their natures know'st, and gav'st them names
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 calla

Now Heav'n in all her glory shone, and rollid
Her motions, as the great first Mover's land
First wheeld their course; earth in her rich attire
Consummate lovely smild; air, waters, earth,
By fowl, fish, beast, was fluwn, 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 endu'd
With sanctity of reason, might erect
llis stature, and upright with front serene
Govern the rest, self-knowing, and from thence
Magnanimous to correspond with heav'n,
But grateful to acknowledge whence his good:
Descends, thither with heart, and voice, and eyese
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 fuwl of sea and air,
Beast of the field, and over all the earth,
And every creeping thing that creeps the ground.
I kis said, he found thee, Adam, thee, 0 Alan,

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
Express, and thou becam'st a living soul,
Male he created thee, but thy consort
Female for race; then bless'd mankind, and said,
Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth,
Subdue it, and throughout dominion hold
Over fish of the sea, and fowl of th' air,
And every living thing that moves on th' 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 th' earth yields,
Variety without end; but of the tree,
Which tasted works knowledge of good and evil,
Thou may'st not; in the day thou eat'st, thou dy'st;
Death is the penalty impos'd; 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 ev'n and morn accomplish'd the sixth day;
Y not till the Creator from his work
Desisting, though unwearied, up return'd,
Up to the Heav'n of Heav'ns, his high abode,
Thence to Behold this new created world,
Th’addition of his empire, how it show'd
In prospect from his throne, how good, how fair,
Answering his great idea. Up he rode,
Follow'd with acclamation, and the sound
Symphonious of ten thousand harps that tun'd
Angelic harmonies: the earth, the air
Resounded, (thou remember'st, for thou heard'st) -
The heav'ns and all the constellations rung,
The planets in their statiop list'aing stood,