Page:The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton.djvu/225

 BOOK SEVENTH

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��Of rainbows and starry eyes. The waters thus

With Fish replenished, and the air with Fowl,

Evening and morn solemnized the fifth

Day. " The sixth, and of Creation last, arose

With evening harps and matin; when God said, 450

' Let the Earth bring forth soul living in her kind,

Cattle, and creeping things, and beast of the earth,

Each in their kind ! ' The Earth obeyed, and, straight

Opening her fertil womb, teemed at a birth

Innumerous living creatures, perfet forms,

Limbed and full-grown. Out of the ground up rose,

As from his lair, the wild beast, where he wons

In forest wild, in thicket, brake, or den

Among the trees in pairs they rose, they walked ; 459

The cattle in the fields and meadows green :

Those rare and solitary, these in flocks

Pasturing at once and in broad herds, up- sprung.

The grassy clods now calved; now half ap- peared

The tawny Lion, pawing to get free

His hinder parts then springs, as broke from bonds,

And rampant shakes his briuded mane; the Ounce,

The Libbard, and the Tiger, as the Mole

Rising, the crumbled earth above them threw

In hillocks; the swift Stag from under- ground 469

Bore up his branching head; scarce from his mould

Behemoth, biggest born of earth, upheaved

His vastness; fleeced the flocks and bleat- ing rose,

As plants; ambiguous between sea and land,

The River-horse and scaly Crocodile.

At once came forth whatever creeps the ground,

Insect or worm. Those waved their limber fans

For wings, and smallest lineaments exact

In all the liveries decked of summer's pride,

��With spots of gold and purple, azure and

green; 479

These as a line their long dimension drew,

Streaking the ground with sinuous trace:

not all

Minims of nature; some of serpent kind, Wondrous in length and corpulence, in- volved Their snaky folds, and added wings. First

crept

The parsimonious Emmet, provident Of future, in small room large heart en- closed

Pattern of just equality perhaps Hereafter joined in her popular tribes Of commonalty. Swarming next appeared The female Bee, that feeds her husband drone 49 o

Deliciously, and builds her waxen cells With honey stored. The rest are number- less, And thou their natures know'st, and gav'st

them names,

Needless to thee repeated; nor unknown The Serpent, subtlest beast of all the field, Of huge extent sometimes, with brazen

eyes

And hairy mane terrific, though to thee Not noxious, but obedient at thy call. " Now Heaven in all her glory shon,

and rowled

Her motions, as the great First Mover's

hand 500

First wheeled their course; Earth, in her

rich attire Consummate, lovely smiled; Air, Water,

Earth, By fowl, fish, beast, was flown, was swum,

was walked,

Frequent; and of the sixth Day yet re- mained. There wanted yet the master-work, the

end Of all yet done a creature who, not

prone

And brute as other creatures, but endued With sanctity of reason, might erect His stature, and, upright with front serene Govern the rest, self-knowing, and from thence 510

Magnanimous to correspond with Heaven, But grateful to acknowledge whence his

good

Descends; thither with heart, and voice, and eyes

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