"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 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 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 formed the Moon
"Globose, and every magnitude of stars;
"And sowed with stars the Heaven, thick as a field:
"Of light by far the greater part he took,

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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 gathered beams-great palace now of light. "Hither, as to their fountain, other stars

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'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 gray 66 Dawn, and the Pleiades, before him danced,

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Shedding sweet influence: less bright the Moon,

"But opposite in levelled 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,

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"Revolved on Heaven's great axle, and her reign
"With thousand lesser lights dividual holds,
"With thousand thousand stars, that then appeared

Spangling the hemisphere-then first adorned

"With their bright luminaries, that set and rose:

"Glad evening and glad morn crowned the fourth day. "And God said, 'Let the waters generate

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Reptile with spawn abundant, living soul: "And let fowl fly above the earth, with wings "Displayed on the open firmament of Heaven.' "And God created the great whales, and each "Soul living, each crept, which plenteously "The waters generated by their kinds: "And every bird of wing after his kind;

"And saw that it was good, and blessed them, saying,
“Be fruitful, multiply; and in the seas,

"And lakes, and running streams, the waters fill:
"And let the fowl be multiplied on the 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 waved 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,
66 Wallowing unwieldy, enormous in their gait,
66 Tempest the ocean: there leviathan,

Hugest of living creatures, on the deep "Stretched 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,

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66 Their brood as numerous hatch, from the egg that, soon "Bursting with kindly rapture, forth disclosed

"Their callow young; but feathered soon and fledge

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"They summed their pens; and, soaring the air sublime, "With clang despised 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, ranged in figure, wedge their way,

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Intelligent of seasons, and set forth

"Their airy caravan, high over seas

"Flying, and over lands, with mutual wing

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'Easing their flight; so steers the prudent crane
"Her annual voyage, borne on winds; the air
"Floats as they pass, fanned with unnumbered plumes.
"From branch to branch the smaller birds with song
"Solaced the woods, and spread their painted wings
"Till even; nor then the solemn nightingale
"Ceased warbling, but all night tuned her soft lays.
"Others, on silver lakes and rivers, bathed

"Their downy breast; the swan, with archèd 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 aërial sky. Others on ground

"Walked firm; the crested cock, whose clarion sounds
"The silent hours; and the other, whose gay train
"Adorns him, coloured with the florid hue
"Of rainbows and starry eyes. The waters thus
"With fish replenished, and the air with fowl,
“Evening and morn solémnized 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 obeyed, and straight

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Opening her fertile womb, teemed at a birth,

"Innumerous living creatures, perfect forms,
"Limbed 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 walked:
"The cattle in the fields and meadows green;

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"Those rare and solitary, these in flocks

"Pasturing at once, and in broad herds up sprung.

"The grassy clods now calved; now half appeared "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

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Rising, the crumbled earth above them threw

"In hillocks: the swift stag from underground

“Bore up his branching head: scarce from his mould, 470
"Behemoth, biggest born of Earth, upheaved
"His vastness: fleeced 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 waved their limber fans
"For wings, and smallest lineaments exact
"In all the liveries decked 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, involved "Their snaky folds, and added wings. First crept "The parsimonious emmet, provident

"Of future; in small room large heart inclosed; "Pattern of just equality perhaps

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"Hereafter, joined in her popular tribes

"Of commonalty: swarming next appeared

"The female bee, that feeds her husband drone

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"Deliciously, and builds her waxen cells

"With honey stored. The rest are numberless,

"And thou their natures knowest, and gavest 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 rolled "Her motions, as the great first Mover's hand

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"First wheeled their course; Earth in her rich attire "Consummate lovely smiled! air, water, Earth,

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'By fowl, fish, beast, was flown, was swum, was walked, "Frequent; and of the sixth day yet remained— "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 66 '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

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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 formed thee, Adam, thee, O Man! "Dust of the ground, and in thy nostrils breathed "The breath of life; in his own image he

"Created thee, in the image of God

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Express; and thou becamest a living soul.

"Male he created thee; but thy consort

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Female, for race; then blessed 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 knowst,
"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

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