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GOD said, "Let the waters generate

Reptile with spawn abundant, living soul;
And let fowl fly above the Earth, with wings
Display'd on the open firmament of heaven!"
And God created the great whales, and each
Soul living, each that crept, which plenteously
The waters generated by their kinds,

And every bird of wing after his kind;

And saw that it was good, and bless'd 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 sculls that oft
Bank the mid sea. Part, 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,
Wallowing unwieldy, enormous in their gait,
Tempest the ocean. There leviathan,
Hugest of living creatures, on the deep
Stretch'd 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.

PARADISE LOST, BOOK VII.

HE tepid caves, and fens, and shores,

THE

Their brood as numerous hatch from the egg, that soon,

Bursting with kindly rupture, forth disclosed

Their callow young; but feather'd soon and fledge They summ'd their pens, and, soaring the air sublime,

With clang despis'd 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 aery caravan, high over seas

Flying, and over lands, with mutual wing

Easing their flight; so steers the prudent crane
Her annual voyage, borne on winds; the air

Floats as they pass, fanned with unnumber'd plumes.
From branch to branch the smaller birds with song
Solaced the woods, and spread their painted wings,
Till even; 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 arched neck
Between her white wings mantling proudly, rows
Her state with oary feet; yet oft they quit
The dank, and, rising on stiff pennons, tower
The mid aerial sky. Others on ground

Walk'd firm: the crested cock whose clarion sounds
The silent hours, and the other whose gay train
Adorns him, colour'd with the florid hue

Of rainbows and starry eyes.

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Evening and morn solemnized the fifth day.

PARADISE LOST, BOOK VII.

"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 obey'd, and straight,
Opening her fertile womb, teem'd at a birth
Innumerous living creatures, perfect forms,
Limb'd 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 walk'd;
The cattle in the fields and meadows green :
Those rare and solitary, these in flocks
Pasturing at once, and in broad herds upsprung.
The grassy clods now calved; now half appear'd
The tawny lion, pawing to get free

His hinder parts, then springs, as broke from bonds,
And rampant shakes his brinded 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
Bore up his branching head; scarce from his mould
Behemoth, biggest born of earth, upheaved

His vastness; fleeced the flocks and bleating rose,
As plants; ambiguous between sea and land,
The river-horse and scaly crocodile.

PARADISE LOST, BOOK VII.

AT

T 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 deck'd of summer's pride,
With spots of gold and purple, azure and green;
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, involved
Their snaky folds, and added wings. First crept
The parsimonious emmet, provident

Of future, in small room large heart enclosed;
Pattern of just equality perhaps

Hereafter, joined in her popular tribes

Of commonalty. Swarming next appear'd
The female bee, that feeds her husband drone
Deliciously, and builds her waxen cells

With honey stored. The rest are numberless;

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The serpent, subtlest beast of all the field,
Of huge extent sometimes, with brazen eyes
And hairy mane terrific.

PARADISE LOST, BOOK VII.

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OW Heaven in all her glory shone, and roll'd Her motions, as the great First Mover's hand First wheel'd their course; Earth in her rich attire Consummate lovely smiled; air, water, earth,

By fowl, fish, beast, was flown, was swum, was walk'd
Frequent; and of the sixth day yet remain'd.
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
Magnanimous to correspond with Heaven,
But grateful to acknowledge whence his good
Descends, thither with heart, and voice, and eyes,
Directed in devotion, to adore

And worship God supreme, who made him chief
Of all his works.

PARADISE LOST, BOOK VII.

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