i3 2
��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
�� �
