Page:Paradise lost by Milton, John.djvu/244

238 Graze the seaweed, their pasture, and through groves Of coral stray, or, sporting with quick glance, Shew to the sun their waved coats dropt with gold; Or, in their pearly shells at ease, attend Moist nutriments; or under rocks their food In jointed armor watch; on smooth the seal And bended dolphins play; part, huge of bulk, Wallowing unwieldy, enormous in their gait, 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,

Their brood as numerous hatch from the egg, that soon, Bursting with kindly rupture, forth disclose Their callow young; but feathered soon and fledge 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.