Page:The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton.djvu/224

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��PARADISE LOST

��Iu that aspect, aud still that distance keeps Till night; then in the east her turn she

shines, 380

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.

" And God said, ' Let the waters gener- ate

Reptile with spawn abundant, living soul; And let Fowl fly above the earth, with

wings Displayed on the open firmament of

heaven ! ' 390

And God created the great Whales, and

each Soul living, each that crept, which plente-

ously

The waters generated by their kinds, And every bird of wing after his kind, And saw that it was good, aud blessed

them, saying,

4 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, 399

With fry innumerable swarm, and shoals Of fish that, with their fins and shining

scales, Glide under the green wave in sculls that

oft Bank the mid-sea. Fart, single or with

mate, Graze the sea-weed, 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 nutriment, or under rocks their food In jointed armour watch; on smooth the

seal And bended dolphins play : part, huge of

bulk, 410

��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 laud, and at his gills Draws in, aud 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 dis- closed Their callow young; but feathered soon

and fledge 420

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. Part loosely wing the Region; part, more

wise, In common, ranged in figure, wedge their

way,

Intelligent of seasons, and set forth Their aerie caravan, high over seas Flying, and over lauds, with mutual wing Easing their flight: so steers the prudent

crane 430

Her annual voyage, borne on winds : the air Floats as they pass, fanned with unnum- bered plumes. From branch to branch the smaller birds

with song Solaced the woods, and spread their painted

wings,

Till even; nor then the solemn nightingal Ceased warbling, but all night tuned her

soft lays.

Others, on silver lakes and rivers, bathed Their downy breast; the swan, with arched

neck Between her white wings mantling proudly,

TOWS 439

Her state with oary feet; yet oft they quit The dank, and, rising on stiff pennons,

tower

The mid aerial sky. Others on ground Walked firm the crested cock, whose

clarion sounds The silent hours, and the other, whose gay

train Adorns him, coloured with the florid hue

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