And fow'd with ftars the Heav'n thick as a field:
Of light by far the greater part he took,
Transplanted from her cloudy shrine, and plac'd 360
In the fun'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 sight
So far remote, with diminution seen.
First in his east the glorious lamp was seen,
Regent of day, and all th'horizon round
Invested with bright rays, jocond to run
His longitude through Heav'n's high road; the gray
Dawn, and the Pleiades before him danc'd
Shedding fweet influence: lefs bright the moon, 375
But oppofit in level'd weft was fet,
His mirror, with full face borrowing her light
From him, for other light she needed none
In that afpéct, and still that distance keeps
Till night, then in the east her turn fhe fhines, 380
Revolv'd on Heav'n's great axle, and her reign
With thousand leffer lights dividual holds,
With thousand thousand stars, that then appear'd
Spangling the hemifphere: then first adorn'd
With their bright luminaries that fet and rose, 38;
Glad evening and glad morn crown'd the fourth day.
And God faid, Let the waters generate
Reptil, with spawn abundant, living foul:
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, multiply, and in the feas,
And lakes, and running ftreams, the waters fill;
And let the fowl be multiply'd on th’earth.
Forthwith the founds and feas, each creek and bay,
With fry innumerable swarm, and fhoals
Of fish that, with their fins and shining scales,
Glide under the green wave, in fculls, that oft
Bank the mid fea: part fingle, or with mate,
Graze the fea weed their pasture, and through groves
Of coral stray; or, fporting, with quick glance
Show to the fun their wav'd coats dropt with gold;
Or in their pearly shells at ease, attend
Moift nutriment; or under rocks their food
In jointed armour watch: on fmooth the seal,
And bended dolphins play: part,huge of bulk, 410
Wallowing unwieldy, enormous in their gate,
Tempeft the ocean: there leviathan,
Hugest of living creatures, on the deep,
Stretch'd like a promontory, fleeps or fwims,
And seems a moving land; and at his gills
Draws in, and at his trunk spouts out a sea.
Mean while the tepid caves, and fens and shores,
Their brood as numerous hatch, from th'egg,that foon
Burfling,with kindly rupture,forth disclos'd
Their callow young; but feather'd foon, and fledge,
They fumm'd their pens, and foaring th'air fublime 421
With clang defpis'd the ground, under a cloud
In prospect; there the eagle, and the stork,
On cliffs, and cedar tops their eyries build:
Part loofly 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 feas
Flying, and over lands, with mutual wing
Easing their flight; fo fteers the prudent crane
Her annual voyage, borne on winds; the air
Flotes, 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 ev'n; nor then the folemn nightingale
Ceas'd warbling, but all night tun'd her soft lays:
Others on filver lakes and rivers bath'd
Their downy breaft; the swan,with arched neck
Between her white wings mantling proudly, rows
•Her ftate with oary feet; yet oft they quit
The dank, and rising on stiff pennons, tower
The mid aereal sky: Others on ground
Walk'd firm; the crested cock, whose clarion sounds
The filent hours; and th' other whofe gay train
Adorns him, color'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 folemniz'd the fifth day.
The Sixth, and of creation last,arose
With evening harps and matin; when God faid, 450
Let th'earth bring forth foul living in her kind,
Cattel, and creeping things, and beast of th'earth,
Each in their kind. The earth obey'd, and strait,
Opening her fertil 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 foreft wild, in thicket, brake, or den;
Among the trees in pairs they rofe, they walk'd:
The cattel in the fields and meadows green:
Those rare and folitary, these in flocks,
Pasturing at once, and in broad herds upsprung.
The graffy 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
Rifing, the crumbled earth above them threw
In hilloes: the swift flag from under ground
Bore up his branching head: scarce from his mold
Behemoth, biggest born of earth,upheav'd 471
His vaftness: fleec'd the flocks and bleating rose,
As plants: ambiguous, between fea and land,
The river horse,and scaly crocodile.
At once came forth whatever creeps the ground, 475
Infect or worm: those wav'd their limber fans
For wings, and smallest lineaments exact
In all the liveries deck'd of fummer's pride
With spots of gold and purple, azure and green:
These as a line their long dimension drew,
Streaking the ground with finuous trace; not all
Minims of nature; fome of ferpent kind,
Wondrous in length and corpulence, involv'd
Their fnaky folds, and added wings. First crept
The parfimonious emmet, provident
Of future, in small room large heart inclos'd;
Pattern of just equality perhaps
Hereafter, joined in her popular tribes
Of commonalty: fwarming next appear'd
The female bee, that feeds her husband drone 490
Deliciously, and builds her waxen cells,
With honey flor'd: the reft are numberless,
And thou their natures know'st,and gav'ft them names,
Needless to thee repeated; nor unknown
The ferpent, fubtleft beast of all the field;
Of huge extent, sometimes, with brazen eyes
And hairy mane terrific, though to thee
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