His brooding wings the Spirit of God outspread, And vital virtue infused, and vital warmth
Throughout the fluid mass; but downward purged The black tartareous cold infernal dregs, Adverse to life: then founded, then conglobed Like things to like; the rest to several place Disparted, and between spun out the air : And earth self balanced on her centre hung.
Let there be light, said God; and forthwith light Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure, Sprung from the deep; and from her native east To journey through the aery gloom began, Sphered in a radiant cloud, for yet the sun Was not; she in a cloudy tabernacle
God saw the light was good;
And light from darkness by the hemisphere
Divided: light the day, and darkness night,
He named. Thus was the first day even and morn Nor pass'd uncelebrated, nor unsung
By the celestial choirs, when orient light
Exhaling first from darkness they beheld;
Birthday of heaven and earth; with joy and shout
The hollow universal orb they fill'd,
And fouch'd their golden harps, and hymning praised
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, diffused
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 removed; lest fierce extremes Contiguous might distemper the whole frame : And heaven he named 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 involved, Appear'd not over all the face of earth Main ocean flow'd, not idle; but, with warm Prolific humour softening all her globe, Fermented the great mother to conceive, Satiate with genial moisture; when God said, Be gather'd now, ye waters under heaven, 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 heaved the tumid hills, so low Down sunk a hollow bottom broad and deep, Capacious bed of waters; thither they Haste 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 watery 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 wandering, 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 the 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 flower'd Opening their various colours, and made gay Her bosom, smelling sweet : and these scarce blown Forth flourish'd thick the clustering vine, forth
The swelling gourd, up stood the corny reed Embattled in her field, and the 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: the earth now Seem'd like to heaven, 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 the 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 the Almighty spake, Let there be lights High in the 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 heaven,
To give light on the earth; and it was so. And God made two great lights, great for their
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 heaven To 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 framed, 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 placed 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. Ilither 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 the horizon round Invested with bright rays, jocund to run
His longitude through heaven's high road; the
Dawn and the Pleiades before him danced, Shedding sweet influence: less bright the moon, But opposite in levell'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, 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. !
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