Page:The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton.djvu/222

 i So

��PARADISE LOST

��And said, ' Thus far extend, thus far thy

bounds; 230

This be thy just circumference, O World ! '

Thus God the Heaven created, thus the

Earth,

Matter unformed and void. Darkness pro- found

Covered the Abyss ; but on the watery calm His brooding wings the Spirit of God out- spread,

And vital virtue infused, and vital warmth, Throughout the fluid mass, but downward

purged

The black, tartareous, cold, infernal dregs, Adverse to life; then founded, then con- globed, 239 Like things to like, the rest to several place Disparted, and between spun out the Air, And Earth, self-balanced, on her centre

hung. " ' Let there be Light ! ' said God; and

forthwith Light

Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure, Sprung from the Deep, and from her na- tive East

To journey through the aery gloom began, Sphered in a radiant cloud for yet the

Sun

Was not; she in a cloudy tabernacle Sojourned the while. God saw the Light was good; 249

And light from darkness by the hemisphere Divided: Light the Day, and Darkness

Night, He named. Thus was the first Day even

and morn;

Nor passed uncelebrated, nor unsung By the celestial quires, when orient light Exhaling first from darkness they beheld, Birth-day of Heaven and Earth. With joy

and shout

The hollow universal orb they filled, And touched their golden harps, and hym- ning praised

God and his works; Creator him they sung, Both when first evening was, and when first morn. 260

" Again God said, ' Let there be firma- ment

Amid the waters, and let it divide The waters from the waters ! ' And God

made

The firmament, expanse of liquid, pure, Transparent, elemental air, diffused In circuit to the uttermost convex

��Of this great round partition firm and

sure,

The waters underneath from those above Dividing; for as Earth, so he the World Built on circumfluous waters calm, in wide Crystallin ocean, and the loud misrule 271 Of Chaos far removed, lest fierce extremes Contiguous might distemper the whole

frame : And Heaven he named the Firmament.

So even

And morning chorus sung the second Day. " The Earth was formed, but, in the

womb as yet

Of waters, embryon immature, involved, Appeared not; over all the face of Earth Main ocean flowed, not idle, but, with warm Prolific humour softening all her globe, 280 Fermented the great mother to conceive, Satiate with genial moisture; when God

said,

' Be gathered now, ye waters under heaven, Into one place, and let dry land appear ! ' Immediately the mountains huge appear Emergent, and their broad bare backs up- heave

Into the clouds; their tops ascend the sky. So high as heaved the tumid hills, so low Down sunk a hollow bottom broad and

deep,

Capacious bed of waters. Thither they 290 Hasted with glad precipitance, uprowled, As drops on dust conglobing, from the dry: Part rise in crystal wall, 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 watery

throng, Wave rowling after wave, where way they

found If steep, with torrent rapture, if through

plain, Soft-ebbing; nor withstood them rock or

hill; 300

But they, or underground, or circuit wide With serpent error wandering, 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

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