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 the 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 the 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

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 even; 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 aerial 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 solemniz'd 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 earth,
Each in their kind. » The earth obey'd, and straight
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, 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 gret 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 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 ereeps 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 dimension drew,
Streaking the ground with sinuous trace; not all
Minims of nature: some of serpent-kind,
Wondrous in length and corpulence, involv'd
Their snaky folds, and added wings.

The parsimonious emmet, provident

First crept

Of future; in small room large heart enclos'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
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 call.

Now heaven in all her glory shone, and roll'd
Her motions, as the great first Mover's hand
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 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 the 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

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 the air,

And every living thing that moves on the 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 the 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 diest ; 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 even and morn accomplish'd the sixth day.
Yet not till the Creator from his work

Desisting, though unwearied, up return'd,
Up to the heaven of heavens, his high abode;
Thence to behold this new-created world,