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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