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Appeared not: over all the face of earth
Main ocean flowed, not idle, but with wa
Prolific humor softening all her globe
Fermented the great mother to conceive,
Satiate with genial moisture; when God
'Be gathered now, ye waters under heave
Into one place, and let dry land appear!'
Immediately the mountains huge appear
Emergent, and their broad bare backs uph
Into the clouds, their tops ascend the sky.
So high as heaved the tumid hills, so low
Down sunk a hollow bottom broad and dee
Capacious bed of waters: thither they
Hasted with glad precipitance, uprolled
As drops on dust conglobing from the dry ;
Part rise in crystal wall, or ridge direct,
For haste; such flight the great command
On the swift floods. As armies at the call
Of trumpet (for of armies thou hast heard)
Troop to their standard, so the watery thro
Wave rolling after wave, where way they f
If steep, with torrent rapture; if through p
Soft-ebbing: nor withstood them rock or hi
But they, or underground, or circuit wide
With serpent error wandering, found their v
And on the washy ooze deep channels wore
Easy, ere God had bid the ground be dry,

279. Main, vast.

280. humor, moisture. 283-308. See Genesis i. 9, 10. 286. Emergent, rising out of the waters.

288. So high - so low. Psalm civ. 8, 9.

See

291. precipitance, haste; headlong flow.

293. direct, perpendicular; steep.

294. such flight. "At thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of

thy thunder they ha Psalm civ. 7.

299. torrent, rushin violence; violent rap 301. or underground wide, either undergr wide circuit.

302. serpent, windin

like. -error, irregular

303. ooze, soft mud

304. Easy, which i an easy thing, to do.

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 called 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.'

305

310

316

He scarce had said, when the bare earth, till then
Desert and bare, unsightly, unadorned,
Brought forth the tender grass, whose verdure clad
Her universal face with pleasant green;
Then herbs of every leaf, that sudden flowered
Opening their various colors, and made gay
Her bosom smelling sweet; and these scarce blown,
Forth flourished thick the clustering vine, forth crept
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

321

Their branches hung with copious fruit, or gemmed Their blossoms. With high woods the hills were

crowned,

With tufts the valleys and each fountain side,

326

With borders long the rivers; that Earth now Seemed like to Heaven, a seat where gods might

dwell,

Or wander with delight, and love to haunt

330

Her sacred shades: though God had yet not rained
Upon the earth, and man to till the ground
None was; but from the earth a dewy mist

Went up and watered all the ground, and each

307. earth, he called earth. 309-312. See Genesis i. 11, 12. 314. Desert, uncultivated. 321. the corny reed, the jointed stem of corn (grain).

322. Embattled, as in order of battle.

323 implicit, entangled.
325. gemmed, put forth.

328. thai, so that.

331-337. See Genesis ii. 5, 6.

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Plant of the field, which ere it was in the God made, and every herb before it grew On the green stem. God saw that it was So even and morn recorded the third day Let

66

Again the Almighty spake :

lights

High in the expanse of heaven, to divide
The day from night; and let them be for
For seasons, and for days, and circling yea
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
To man, the greater to have rule by day,
The less by night, altern; and made the st
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 sa
Surveying his great work, that it was good
For of celestial bodies first the sun
A mighty sphere he framed, unlightsome fir
Though of ethereal mould; then formed the
Globose, and every magnitude of stars,
And sowed with stars the heaven thick as a
Of light by far the greater part he took,
Transplanted from her cloudy shrine, and p
In the sun's orb, made porous to receive
And drink the liquid light, firm to retain
Her gathered beams, great palace now of li
Hither, as to their fountain, other stars

339-353 See Genesis i. 14-18.
348. altern, alternate.
355. unlightsome, wanting

light.

357. Globose, spherical.

360. her cloudy s line 248.

363. Her refers to 364. other stars, t which shine by lig from the sun.

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

365

370

His longitude through heaven's high road; the gray
Dawn and the Pleiadès before him danced
Shedding sweet influence. Less bright the moon, 375
But opposite in levelled west was set,

380

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 her bright luminaries that set and rose,
Glad evening and glad morn crowned the fourth day.

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385

east to west. "His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends thereof " Psalm xix. 6.

374. the Pleiades are a cluster of stars in the constellation Tau

rus.

375. sweet influence. "Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades?" Job xxxviii. 31.

376. levelled west, the western horizon.

377. His mirror, reflecting his rays.

379. that aspect, that situation with regard to the sun; here, in opposition.

380. her turn, in her turn.
382. dividual, divided; shared.

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"And God said, 'Let the waters gener Reptile with spawn abundant, living soul; And let fowl fly above the earth, with win Displayed on the open firmament of heave And God created the great whales, and ea Soul living, each that crept, which plenteo The waters generated by their kinds, And every bird of wing after his kind; And saw that it was good, and blessed ther 'Be fruitful, multiply, and in the seas, And lakes, and running streams, the water And let the fowl be multiplied on the eart Forth with the sounds and seas, each creek With fry innumerable swarm, and shoals Of fish, that with their fins and shining sca Glide under the green wave, in sculls that Bank the mid sea: part single or with mat Graze the sea-weed, their pasture, and groves

Of coral stray, or sporting with quick glanc Show to the sun their waved coats dropt wi Or in their pearly shells at ease attend Moist nutriment, or under rocks their food In jointed armor watch; on smooth the seal And bended dolphins play; part huge of bu Wallowing unwieldy, enormous in their gait Tempest the ocean. There leviathan, Hugest of living creatures, on the deep

387-448. See Genesis i. 20-23. 388. The word reptile is here used for "every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth."

402. sculls, shoals or schools. 403. Bank, rise in banks in. 405. glance, flash; gleam. 406. dropt, variegated; spotted. 407. attend, lie in wait for. 409. jointed armor. The shell of the lobster resembles the ar

mor anciently worn -smooth, smooth wa

410. bended dolp dolphin forms an are body as he leaps out and immediately dive neath its surface.

412. Tempest, dist tempestuous wind. "There is that leviat thou hast made to pla Psalm civ. 26.

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