Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Opening their various colours, and made gay

321

Her bosom smelling sweet: and these scar
arce blown,
Forth flourish'd thick the clust'ring vine, forth crept
The smelling gourd, up stood the corny reed
Embattled in her field, and th' humble shrub,
And bush with frizzled hair implicit : last
Rose as in dance the stately trees, and spread
Their branches hung with copious fruit, or gemm'd 325
Their blossoms: with high woods the hills were crown'd,
With tufts the valleys, and each fountain side,
With borders long the rivers: that earth now
Seem'd like to Heav'n, a seat where Gods might dwell,
Or wander with delight, and love to haunt
Her sacred shades: though God had yet not rain'd
Upon the earth, and man to till the ground
None was, but from the earth a dewy mist
Went up, and water'd all the ground, and each
Plant of the field, which ere it was in th' earth
God made, and every herb, before it grew
On the green stem; God saw that it was good:
So ev❜n and morn recorded the third day.

330

335

AGAIN th' Almighty spake, Let there be lights

High in th' expanse of Heaven to divide

340

The day from night; and let them be for signs,

For seasons, and for days, and circling years,
And let them be for lights as I ordain

Their office in the firmament of Heaven

To give light on the earth; and it was so.

345

And God made two great lights, great for their use

To Man, the greater to have rule by day,

.

The less by night altern; and made the stars,
And set them in the firmament of Heaven
To' illuminate the earth, and rule the day
In their vicissitude, and rule the night,
And light from darkness to divide.
Surveying his great work, that it was good;
For of celestial bodies first the sun

God saw,

350

A mighty sphere he fram'd, unlightsome first,
Though of ethereal mould: then form'd the moon
Globose, and every magnitude of stars,

355

And sow'd with stars the Heav'n thick as a field:

Of light by far the greater part he took,

360

[ocr errors]

Transplanted from her cloudy shrine, and plac'd
In the sun's orb, made porous to receive
And drink the liquid light, firm to retain
Her gather'd beams, great palace now of light.
Hither as to their fountain other stars

Repairing, in their golden urns draw light,

365

And hence the morning planet gilds her horns;

By tincture or reflection they augment

Their small peculiar, though from human sight
So far remote, with diminution seen.
First in his east the glorious lamp was seen,
Regent of day, and all th' horizon round

370

Invested with bright rays, jocund to run

His longitude through Heav'n's high road; the grey
Dawn, and the Pleiades before him danc'd

Shedding sweet influence: less bright the moon, 375
But opposite in levell'd west was set

His mirror, with full face borrowing her light

380

From him, for other light she needed none
In that aspect, and still that distance keeps
Till night, then in the east her turn she shines,
Revolv'd on Heav'n's great axle, and her reign
With thousand lesser lights dividual holds,
With thousand thousand stars, that then appear'd
Spangling the hemisphere: then first adorn'd
With her bright luminaries that set and rose,
Glad evening and glad morn crown'd the fourth day.
AND God said, Let the waters generate

389

Reptile with spawn abundant, living soul;
And let fowl fly above the earth, with wings
Display'd on th' open firmament of Heaven.

390

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 multiply'd on th' earth.
Forthwith the sounds and seas, each creek and bay

396

With fry innumerable swarm, and shoals

400

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

405

Graze, the sea-weed their pasture, and through groves
Of coral stray, or sporting with quick glance
Show to the sun their wav'd coats dropt with gold,
Or in their pearly shells at ease,

attend

410

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.
Meanwhile the tepid caves, and fens and shores
Their brood as numerous hatch, from th' egg that soon
Bursting with kindly rupture forth disclos'd

415

Their callow young, but feather'd soon and fledge 420 'They summ'd their pens, and soaring th' 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

425

In common, rang'd in figure wedge their way,

Intelligent of seasons, and set forth

Their airy caravan high over seas

Flying, and over lands with mutual wing

430

Easing their flight; so steers the prudent crane
Her annual voyage, borne on winds; the air
Floats, as they pass, fann'd with unnumber'd plumes:
From branch to branch the smaller birds with song
Solac'd the woods, and spread their painted wings
Till ev'n, nor then the solemn nightingale
Ceas'd warbling, but all night tun'd her soft lays:
Others on silver lakes and rivers bath'd

435

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 aereal sky: Others on ground
Walk'd firm; the crested cock whose clarion sounds
The silent hours, and th' other whose gay train
Adorns him, colour'd with the florid hue
Of rainbows and starry' eyes. The waters thus
With fish replenish'd, and the air with fowl,
Ev'ning and morn solemniz'd the fifth day.

THE sixth, and of creation last arose
With evening harps and matin, when God said,
Let th' earth bring forth soul living in her kind,
Cattle and creeping things, and beast of th' 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 uprose
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:

440

445

450

455

460

Those rare and solitary, these in flocks

Pasturing at once, and in broad herds upsprung.

The grassy clods now calv'd, now half appear'd

The tawny lion, pawing to get free

His hinder parts, then springs as broke from bonds, 465 And rampant shakes his brinded mane; the ounce,

The libbard, and the tiger, as the mole

« AnteriorContinuar »