Desert and bare, unsightly, unadornod,
Brought forth the tender grass, whose verdure clad
Her universal face with pleasant green ;
Then herbs of every leaf, that sudden flower'd
Opening their various colours, and made gay
Her bosom smelling sweet; and these searce blown,
Forth flourish'd thick the clust'ring vine, forth crept
The smelling gourd, up slood 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 valleys, and each fountain side,
With borders long the rivers; that earth now
Seem'd like to beaven, a seat where gods might dwell
Or wander with delight, and love to.baunt
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 iš th' 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 th' 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 thein 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 bave rule by day, The less by night altern; and made the stars, And set them in the firmament of heaven 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 heaven, 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 siglit"
So far remote, with diminution seen.
First in his east the glorious lamp was seen,
Regent of day, and all the horizon round
Invested with bright rays, jocund to run
His longitude through heaven's high road; the grey
Dawn and the Pleiades before him danc’d,
Shedding sweet influence. Less bright the moon,
But opposite in leveli'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 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 ber bright luminaries that set and rose,
Glad evening and glad morn crown'd the fourth day.

“ And God said, “Let the waters gencrate
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, saying,
• Be fruitful, and multiply, and in the seas,
And lakes, and running streams, the waters fill;
And let the fowl be multiplied on th’earth!'
Forthwith the sounds and seas, each creek and bay,
With fry innumerable swarın, 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 thro' groves
Of coral stray, or, sporting with quick glance,
Show to the sun their wav'd coats dropp'd with gold;
Or in their pearly shells at ease, attend
Moist rutriment; 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.
Meanwbile 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 niutual wing
Easing their fight. 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 bronch the smaller birds with song
Solac'd the woods, and spread their painted wings
Till eren ;, 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, wirb arched neck
Between her white wings mantling proudly, rows
Her state with oary feet; yet oft they quit
The dank, and, rising on stiil pennons, 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
Adoros 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 tifth day.

“ The sixth, and of creation last, arose
With evening harps and matin; when God said,
· Let th' earth bring forth fowl living in her kind,
Cattle, and creeping things, and beast of th’ earth,
Each in their kind! The earth obey'd, and straight,
Opening ber 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, when he wons
In forest wild, in thieket, 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 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 tlirew
In hillocks; the swift stag from under ground
Bore up his branching bead; scarce from his mould
Behemoth, biggest born of earth, upheav'd
His vastness : Beec'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 and purple', azure and green ;
These as a line their long dimension drew,
Streaking the ground with sinuous trace; not all
Minims of nature; some of serpent kind,
Wondrous in length and corpulence involvd

Their snaky folds, and added wings.' First crept
The parsimonious emmet, provident
For future, in small room large heart enclos'd !
Pattern of just equality perhaps
Hereafter, join'd in her popular tribes
Of commonalty; swarming next appear'd
The female bee, that feeds her husband drone
Deliciously, and builds her wazen 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 heaven in all her glory shone, and rollid Her motions, as the first great Mover's hand First wheeld their course; earth in her rich attire Consummate lovely smil'd ; air, water, earth, By fowl, fish, least, 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 wbo, not prone And brute ás 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 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 be Present?) thus to his Son audibly spake :