Paradise Lost (Modern Library Classics) (51 page)

Adverse to life: then founded
²³⁹
, then conglobed

Like things to like, the rest to several place

Disparted
²⁴¹
, and between spun out the air,

And Earth self-balanced
²⁴²
on her center hung.

   “ ‘Let there
²⁴³
be light,’ said God, and forthwith light

Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure
²⁴⁴

Sprung from the deep, and from her native east

To journey through the airy gloom began,

Sphered in a radiant cloud, for yet the sun

Was not; she in a cloudy tabernacle
²⁴⁸

Sojourned the while. 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 ev’n and morn
²⁵²
:

Nor passed uncelebrated, nor unsung

By the celestial choirs, when orient
²⁵⁴
light

Exhaling
²⁵⁵
first from darkness they beheld;

Birthday of heav’n and Earth; with joy and shout

The hollow universal orb they filled,

And touched their golden harps, and hymning praised

God and his works; Creator him they sung,

Both when first ev’ning was, and when first morn.

   “Again, God said,
²⁶¹
‘Let there be firmament

Amid the waters, and let it divide

The waters from the waters’: and God made

The firmament, expanse
²⁶⁴
of liquid, pure,

Transparent, elemental air, diffused

In circuit to the uttermost convex

Of this great round
²⁶⁷
: partition firm and sure,

The waters underneath from those above

Dividing: for as Earth, so he the world
²⁶⁹

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
²⁷³
:

And heav’n he named the firmament: so ev’n

And morning chorus sung the second day.

   “The Earth was formed, but in the womb as yet

Of waters, embryon immature involved
²⁷⁷
,

Appeared not: over all the face of Earth

Main ocean flowed, not idle, but with warm

Prolific humor soft’ning all her globe,

Fermented the great mother
²⁸¹
to conceive,

Satiate with genial
²⁸²
moisture, when God said,

‘Be gathered now ye waters under heav’n

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
²⁸⁸
hills, so low

Down sunk a hollow bottom broad and deep,

Capacious bed of waters: thither they

Hasted with glad precipitance
²⁹¹
, uprolled

As drops on dust conglobing
²⁹²
from the dry;

Part rise in crystal wall
²⁹³
, or ridge direct,

For haste; such flight the great command impressed

On the swift floods: as armies at the call

Of trumpet (for of armies thou hast heard)

Troop to their standard, so the wat’ry throng,

Wave rolling after wave, where way they found,

If steep, with torrent rapture
²⁹⁹
, if through plain,

Soft-ebbing; nor withstood them rock or hill,

But they, or under ground, or circuit wide

With serpent error wand’ring
³⁰²
, 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
³⁰⁸
he called seas:

And saw that it was good, and said, ‘Let th’ earth
³⁰⁹

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
³¹³
, 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 flow’red

Op’ning their various colors, and made gay

Her bosom smelling sweet: and these scarce blown,

Forth flourished thick the clust’ring vine, forth crept

The swelling
³²¹
gourd, up stood the corny reed

Embattled
³²²
in her field: add the humble shrub,

And bush with frizzled hair
³²³
implicit: last

Rose as in dance the stately trees, and spread

Their branches hung with copious fruit; or gemmed
³²⁵

Their blossoms: with high woods the hills were crowned,

With tufts the valleys and each fountain side,

With borders long the rivers. That Earth now

Seemed like to Heav’n, a seat where gods might dwell,

Or wander with delight, and love to haunt

Her sacred shades: though God had yet not rained

Upon the earth, and man to till the ground
³³²

None was, but from the earth a dewy mist

Went up and watered 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 ev’n and morn recorded
³³⁸
the third day.

   “Again th’
³³⁹
Almighty spake: ‘Let there be lights

High in th’ 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 heav’n

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
³⁴⁸
: and made the stars,

And set them in the firmament of heav’n

To illuminate the Earth, and rule the day

In their vicissitude
³⁵¹
, 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 mold
³⁵⁶
: then formed the moon

Globose, and every magnitude of stars
³⁵⁷
,

And sowed with stars the heav’n 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 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 planet
³⁶⁶
gilds her horns;

By tincture or reflection
³⁶⁷
they augment

Their small peculiar
³⁶⁸
, 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
³⁷²
with bright rays, jocund to run

His longitude
³⁷³
through Heav’n’s high road: the gray

Dawn, and the Pleiades
³⁷⁴
before him danced

Shedding sweet influence: less bright the moon,

But opposite in leveled west
³⁷⁶
was set

His mirror
³⁷⁷
, with full face borrowing her light

From him, for other light she needed none

In that aspect
³⁷⁹
, and still that distance keeps

Till night, then in the east her turn she shines,

Revolved on Heav’n’s great axle
³⁸¹
, and her reign

With thousand lesser lights dividual
³⁸²
holds,

With thousand thousand stars, that then appeared

Spangling the hemisphere: then first adorned

With their bright luminaries that set and rose,

Glad ev’ning and glad morn crowned the fourth day.

   “And God said,
³⁸⁷
‘Let the waters generate

Reptile
³⁸⁸
with spawn abundant, living soul:

And let fowl fly above the earth, with wings

Displayed
³⁹⁰
on the op’n firmament of heav’n.’

And God created the great whales, and each

Soul living, each that crept, which plenteously

The waters generated by their kinds
³⁹³
,

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 schools that oft

Bank the mid sea
⁴⁰³
: part single or with mate

Graze the seaweed their pasture, and through groves

Of coral stray, or sporting with quick glance

Show to the sun their waved coats dropped with gold,

Or in their pearly shells at ease, attend

Moist nutriment, or under rocks their food

In jointed armor watch: on smooth
⁴⁰⁹
the seal,

And bended
⁴¹⁰
dolphins play: part huge of bulk

Wallowing unwieldy, enormous in their gait

Tempest the ocean: there leviathan
⁴¹²

Hugest of living creatures, on the deep

Stretched like a promontory sleeps or swims,

And seems a moving land, and at his gills
⁴¹⁵

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
⁴¹⁹
rupture forth disclosed

Their callow
⁴²⁰
young, but feathered soon and fledge

They summed their pens
⁴²¹
, and soaring th’ air sublime

With clang
⁴²²
despised the ground, under a cloud

In prospect; there the eagle and the stork

On cliffs and cedar tops their eyries build:

Part loosely
⁴²⁵
wing the region, part more wise

In common, ranged in figure wedge their way,

Intelligent
⁴²⁷
of seasons, and set forth

Their airy caravan high over seas

Flying
⁴²⁹
, and over lands with mutual wing

Easing their flight; so steers the prudent crane

Her annual voyage, borne on winds; the air

Floats
⁴³²
, as they pass, fanned with unnumbered plumes:

From branch to branch the smaller birds with song

Solaced
⁴³⁴
the woods, and spread their painted wings

Till ev’n, 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
⁴³⁹
proudly, rows

Her state
⁴⁴⁰
with oary feet: yet oft they quit

The dank
⁴⁴¹
, and rising on stiff pennons, tower

The mid-aerial sky
⁴⁴²
: others on ground

Walked firm; the crested cock whose clarion sounds

The silent hours, and th’ other
⁴⁴⁴
whose gay train

Adorns him, colored with the florid hue

Of rainbows and starry eyes
⁴⁴⁶
. The waters thus

With fish replenished, and the air with fowl,

Ev’ning and morn solemnized the fifth day.

   “The sixth and of creation last arose

With ev’ning
⁴⁵⁰
harps and matin, when God said,

‘Let th’ earth bring forth soul
⁴⁵¹
living in her kind,

Cattle and creeping things, and beast of the earth,

Each in their kind.’ The earth obeyed, and straight

Op’ning her fertile womb teemed
⁴⁵⁴
at a birth

Innumerous living creatures, perfect forms,

Limbed and full-grown: out of the ground uprose

As from his lair the wild beast where he wons
⁴⁵⁷

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
⁴⁶¹
and solitary, these in flocks

Pasturing at once, and in broad herds upsprung.

The grassy clods now calved, now half appeared

The tawny lion
⁴⁶⁴
, pawing to get free

His hinder parts, then springs as broke from bonds,

And rampant shakes his brinded main; the ounce,

The libbard, and the tiger, as the mole