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With serpent error wandering,1 found their way, And on the washy ooze deep channels wore; Easy, ere God had bid the ground be dry, All but within those banks, where rivers now Stream, and perpetual draw their humid train. The dry land, Earth, and the great receptacle Of congregated waters, He called Seas; And saw that it was good; and said:-Let the earth Put forth the verdant grass, herb yielding seed, And fruit-tree yielding fruit after her kind, Whose seed is in herself upon the earth. He scarce had said, when the bare earth, till then Desert and bare, unsightly, unadorned, Brought forth the tender grass, whose verdure clad Her universal face with pleasant green; Then herbs of every leaf, that sudden flowered, Opening their various colours, and made gay Her bosom, smelling sweet; and, these scarce blown, Forth flourished thick the clustering vine, forth crept The swelling gourd, up stood the corny reed Embattled in her field, and the 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 gemmed Their blossoms. With high woods the hills were crowned, With tufts the valleys, and each fountain side; With borders long the rivers; that Earth now Seemed like to Heaven, a seat where Gods might dwell, Or wander with delight, and love to haunt Her sacred shades; though God had yet not rained Upon the earth, and man to till the ground None was, but from the earth a dewy mist Went up, and watered all the ground, and each

Book VIL, lines 581, 582.

With serpent error wandering.—An obscure expression. A winding path might be described as serpentine; but a serpentine is to be erroneous? Perhaps because it why is it said to be erroneous? Perhaps because it seems to suppose action and reaction, which itself supposes Frizzled hair implicit. - Implicitus -- entangled. (Latin.)