And let the fowle be multiply'd on the earth.
Forthwith the founds and feas, each creek and bay
With frie innumerable swarme, and moales
of fifh that with their finns and fhining fcafes
Glide under the green wave, in feulles that oft
Bank the mid fea: part fingle or with mate
Graze the fea weed their pasture, and through groves
Of coral ftray, or fporting with quick glance
Show to the fun their wav'd coats dropt with gold,
Or in their pearle shells at ease, attend
Moist nutriment, or under rocks their food
In jointed armour watch: on smooth the seale,
And bended dolphins play: part huge of bulk
Wallowing unweildie, enormous in their gate
Tempeft the ocean: there leviathan
Hugest of living creatures, on the deep
Stretcht like a promontorie fleeps or swims,
And seems a moving land, and at his gilles
Draws in, and at his trunk spouts out a' fea.
Mean while the tepid caves, and fens and fhoares
Their brood as numerous hatch, from the egg that foon
Bursting with kindly rupture forth disclos'd
Their callow young, but feather'd foon and fledge
They fumm'd their penns, and foaring th'air fublime
With clang defpis'd the ground, under a cloud
In profpect; there the eagle and the stork
On cliffs and cedar tops their eyries build:
Part loofly wing the region, part more wife
In common, rang'd in figure wedge their way,
Intelligent of feafons, and fet forth
Their aierie caravan high over feas
Flying, and over lands with mutual wing
Easing their flight; fo ftears the prudent crane
Her annual voiage, born on winds; the air
Floats, as they pass, fann'd with unnumber'd plumes
From branch to branch the smaller birds with fong
Solac'd the woods, and spread their painted wings
Till ev'n, nor then the folemn nightingal
Ceas'd warbling, but all night tun'd her soft layes:
Others on filver lakes and rivers bath'd
Their downie breaft; the fwan with arched neck
Between her white wings mantling proudly, rowes
Her ftate with oarie feet: yet oft they quit
The dank, and rising on stiff pennons, towre
The mid aerial skie: others on ground
Walk'd firm; the crefted cock whose clarion founds
The filent hours, and th'other whose gay traine
Adorns him, colour'd with the florid hue
Of rainbows and starrie eyes. The waters thus
With fish replenisht, and the air with fowle,
Ev'ning and morn folemniz'd the fifth day.
The fixt, and of creation laft arose
With ev'ning harps and mattin, when God faid,
Let th'earth bring forth fowle living in her kind,
Cattel and creeping things, and beast of the earth,
Each in their kind. The earth obey'd, and ftrait
Op'ning her fertil woomb teem'd at a birth
Innumerous living creatures, perfect formes,
Limb'd and full grown out of the ground up rofe
As from his laire the wilde beaft where he wonns
In forreft wilde, in thicket, brake, or den;
Among the trees in pairs they rofe, they walk'd:
The cattel in the fields and meddowes green :
Those rare and folitarie, thefe in flocks
Pasturing at once, and in broad herds upfprung.
The graffie clods now calv'd, now half appeer'd
The tawnie lion, pawing to get free
His hinder parts, then fprings as broke from bonds.
And rampant shakes his brinded main; the ounce,
The libbard, and the tyger, as the moale
Rifing, the crumbl'd earth above them threw
In hillocks; the swift ftag from under ground
Bore up his branching head: scarce from his mould
Behemoth biggest born of earth upheav'd
His vaftness: fleec't the flocks and bleating rofe,
As plants: ambiguous between fea and land
The river horfe and fcalie crocodile.
At once came forth whatever creeps the ground
Infect or worme; those wav'd their limber fans
For wings, and smallest lineaments exact
In all the liveries dect of summer's pride
With fpots of gold and purple, azure and green,
These as a line their long dimenfion drew,
Streaking the ground with finuous trace; not all
Minims of nature; fome of ferpent kind
Wondrous in length and corpulence involv'd
Their snakie foulds, and added wings. First crept
The parfimonious emmet, provident
Of future, in small room large heart enclos'd,
Pattern of just equalitie perhaps
Hereafter, join'd in her popular tribes
Of commonaltie: fwarming next appeer'd
The femal bee that feeds her husband drone
Deliciously, and builds her waxen cells
With honey ftor'd: the rest are numberless,
And thou their natures know'ft, and gay'st them names
Needless to thee repeated; nor unknown
The serpent futtlest beast of all the field,
Of huge extent sometimes, with brazen eyes
And hairie main terrific, though to thee
Not noxious, but obedient at thy call.
Now heav'n in all her glorie thon, and rowl'd
Her motions, as the great first-mover's hand
Firft wheel'd their courfe; earth in her rich attire
Confummate lovly smil'd; air, water, earth,
By fowl, fish, beaft, was flown, was fwum, was walkt
Frequent; and of the fixt day yet remain'd ;
There wanted yet the mafter work, the end
Of all yet done; a creature who not prone
And brute as other creatures, but endu'd
With fanctitie of reason, might erect
His ftature, and upright with front ferene
Govern the reft, felf knowing, and from thence
Magnanimous to correfpond with heav'n,
But grateful to acknowledge whence his good
Defcends, thither with heart and voice and eyes
Directed in devotion, to adore
And worship God fupream, who made him chief
Of all his works: therefore the omnipotent
Eternal father (For where is not he
Prefent) thus to his fon audibly spake.
Let us make now man in our image, man
In our fimilitude, and let them rule
Over the fish and fowle of fea and air,
Beaft of the field, and over all the earth,
And every creeping thing that creeps the ground.
This faid, he form'd thee, Adam, thee o man
Duft of the ground, and in thy noftrifs breath'd
The breath of life; in his own image he
Created thee, in the image of God
Exprefs, and thou becam'ft a living foul.
Male he created thee, but thy confort
Female for race; then biefs'd mankind, and said,
Be fruitful, multiplie, and fill the earth,
Subdue it, and throughout dominion hold
Over fish of the fea, and fowle of the aire,
And every living thing that moves on the earth.
Wherever thus created, for no place
Is yet diftinct by name, thence, as thou know'it,
He brought thee into this delicious grove,
This garden, planted with the trees of God,
Delectable both to behold and taste;
And freely all their pleasant fruit for food
Gave thee, all forts are here that all th'earth yields, Varietie without end; but of the tree
Which tafted works knowledge of good and evil, Thou mai'ft not; in the day thou eat'ft, thou di'ft; Death is the penaltie impos'd, beware,
And govern well thy appetite, least fin
Surprise thee, and her black attendant death.
Here finish'd he, and all that he had made
View'd, and behold all was entirely good;
So ev❜n and morn accomplish'd the fixt day,:
Yet not till the creator from his work
Defifting, though unwearied, up return'd
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