A mighty sphere he framed, unlightsome first,
Though of ethereal mould; then formed the moon
Globose, and every magnitude of stars,

In Jointed armour watch: on smooth the seal,
And bended dolphins play: part huge of bulk
Wallowing unwieldy, enormous in their gait,

And sowed with stars the Heaven, thick as a field: Tempest the ocean: there leviathan,

Of light by far the greater part he took,

Hugest of living creatures, on the deep

Transplanted from her cloudy shrine, and placed Stretched like a promontory, sleeps or swims,

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
Repairing, in their golden urns draw light,
And hence the morning planets 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

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 disclosed Their callow young; but, feathered soon and fledged,

They summed their pens, and, soaring th' air sub-
lime,

With clang despised the ground, under a cloud
In prospect; there the eagle and the stork

His longitude through Heaven's high road; the On cliffs and cedar tops their eyries build:

gray

Dawn, and the Pleiades, before him danced,
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,
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
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 that crept, which plenteously
The waters generated by their kinds,

And every bird of wing after his kind;

Part loosely wing the region, part more wise
In common, ranged 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 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 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 aërial sky: others on ground
Walk'd firm; the crested cock, whose clarion
sounds

The silent hours, and the other whose gay train
Adorns him, coloured with the florid hue

And saw that it was good, and blessed them, say- Of rainbows and starry eyes. The waters thus ing,

'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

With fish replenished, and the air with fowl,
Evening and morn solemnized 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 beasts of the earth,
Each in their kind.' The earth obeyed, and
straight,

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;
Those rare and solitary, these in flocks

Pasturing at once, and in broad herds upsprung.
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
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, upheaved
His vastness: fleeced the flocks and bleating rose,
As plants: ambiguous between sea and land
The river horse and scaly crocodile.

"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
Express, and thou becam'st a living soul.
Male he created thee, but thy consort

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

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 This garden, planted with the trees of God,
Minims of nature; some of serpent kind,
Wondrous in length and corpulence, involved
Their snaky folds, and added wings. First crept

Is yet distinct by name, thence, as thou know'st,
He brought thee into this delicious grove,

The parsimonious emmet, provident

Of future, in small room large heart enclosed,
Pattern of just equality, perhaps,
Hereafter, joined in her popular tribes
Of commonalty: swarming next appeared
The female bee, that feeds her husband drone
Deliciously, and builds her waxen cells
With honey stored; 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 rolled
Her motions, as the great first Mover's hand
First wheeled their course: earth in her rich attire
Consummate lovely smiled; air, water, earth,
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
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 he
Present?) thus to his Son audibly spake.

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 imposed; beware,
And govern well thy appetite, lest Sin
Surprise thee, and her black attendant, Death.

"Here finished he, and all that he had made
Viewed, and behold all was entirely good;
So even and morn accomplished the sixth day:
Yet not till the Creator from his work
Desisted, though unwearied, up returned,
Up to the Heaven of heavens, his high abode,
Thence to behold this new created world,
The addition of his empire, how it showed
In prospect from his throne, how good, how fair,
Answering his great idea. Up he rode,
Followed with acclamation, and the sound
Symphonious of ten thousand harps, that tuned
Angelic harmonics: the earth, the air
Resounded, (thou remember'st, for thou heard'st,)
The Heavens and all the constellations rung,
The planets in their stations listening stood,
While the bright pomp ascended jubilant.
Open, ye everlasting gates! they sung.
Open, ye Heavens! your living doors; let in
The great Creator from his work returned
Magnificent, his six days' work, a world;
Open and henceforth oft; for God will deign
To visit oft the dwellings of just men,
Delighted; and with frequent intercourse
Thither will send his winged messengers
On errands of supernal grace. So sung
The glorious train ascending; he through Heaven,

Powdered with stars. And now on earth the How first this world and face of things began,

And sons of men, whom God hath thus advanced! For aught appears, and on their orbs impose

Served by more noble than herself, attains
Her end without least motion, and receives,
As tribute, such a sumless journey brought
Of incorporeal speed, her warmth and light;
Speed, to describe whose swiftness number fails."
So spake our sire, and by his countenance seemed
Entering on studious thoughts abstruse; which
Eve

Perceiving, where she sat retired in sight,
With lowliness majestic from her seat,
And grace
that won who saw to wish her stay,
Rose, and went forth among her fruits and flowers,
To visit how they prospered, bud and bloom,
Her nursery they at her coming sprung,
And, touched by her fair tendance, gladlier grew.
Yet went she not, as not with such discourse
Delighted, or not capable her ear

Of what was high: such pleasure she reserved,
Adam relating, she sole auditress;
Her husband the relator she preferred
Before the angel, and of him to ask
Chose rather; he, she knew, would intermix
Grateful digressions, and solve high dispute
With conjugal caresses; from his lip

Not words alone pleased her. O who meet now
Such pairs, in love and mutual honour joined?
With goddess-like demeanour forth she went,
Not unattended, for on her, as queen,
A pomp of winning graces waited still,
And from about her shot darts of desire
Into all eyes, to wish her still in sight.
And Raphael now, to Adam's doubt proposed,
Benevolent and facile thus replied.

| Or bright infers not excellence: the earth,
Though, in comparison of Heaven, so small,
Nor glistering, may of solid good contain
More plenty than the sun that barren shines,
Whose virtue on itself works no effect,
But in the fruitful earth; there first received,
His beams, unactive else, their vigour find.
Yet not to earth are those bright luminaries
Officious, but to thee, earth's habitant.
And for the Heaven's wide circuit, let it speak
The Maker's high magnificence, who built
So spacious, and his line stretched out so far;
That man may know he dwells not in his own;
An edifice too large for him to fill,
Lodged in a small partition, and the rest
Ordained for uses to his Lord best known.
The swiftness of those circles attribute,
Though numberless, to his omnipotence,
That to corporeal substances could add
Speed almost spiritual: me thou thinkest not slow,
Who since the morning hour set out from Heaven
Where God resides, and ere mid-day arrived
In Eden, distance inexpressible

By numbers that have name. But this I urge,
Admitting motion in the Heavens, to show
Invalid that which thee to doubt it moved:
Not that I so affirm, though so it seem
To thee who hast thy dwelling here on earth.
God, to remove his ways from human sense,
Placed Heaven from earth so far, that earthly sight,
If it presume, might err in things too high,
And no advantage gain. What if the sur
Be centre to the world, and other stars,

"To ask or search I blame thee not; for Heaven By his attractive virtue and their own Is as the book of God before thee set,

Wherein to read his wondrous works, and learn
His seasons, hours, or days, or months, or years:
This to attain, whether Heaven move or earth,
Imports not, if thou reckon right; the rest
From man or angel the great Architect
Did wisely to conceal, and not divulge
His secrets to be scanned by them who ought
Rather admire; or, if they list to try
Conjecture, he his fabric of the Heavens
Hath left to their disputes, perhaps to move
His laughter at their quaint opinions wide
Hereafter, when they come to model Heaven
And calculate the stars, how they will wield
The mighty frame, how build, unbuild, contrive
To save appearances, how gird the sphere
With centric and eccentric scribbled o'er,
Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb:

Already by thy reasoning this I guess,
Who art to lead thy offspring, and supposest
That bodies bright and greater should not serve
The less not bright, nor Heaven such journey's

run,

Earth sitting still, when she alone receives
The benefit: consider first, that great

Incited, dance about him various rounds?
Their wandering course now high, now low, then
hid,

Progressive, retrograde, or standing still,

In six thou seest; and what if seventh to these
The planet earth, so steadfast though she seem,
Insensibly three different motions move?
Which else to several spheres thou must ascribe,
Moved contrary with thwart obliquities;
Or save the sun his labour, and that swift
Nocturnal and diurnal rhomb supposed,
Invisible else above all stars, the wheel
Of day and night; which needs not thy belief,
If earth, industrious of herself, fetch day
Travelling east, and with her part averse
From the sun's beam meet night, her other part
Still luminous by his ray. What if that light,
Sent from her through the wide transpicuous air.
To the terrestrial moon be as a star,
Enlightening her by day, as she by night
This earth? reciprocal, if land be there,
Fields and inhabitants: her spots thou seest
As clouds, and clouds may rain, and rain produce
Fruits in her softened soil, for some to eat
Allotted there; and other suns perhaps,