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Воок VII.—335-367]

Plant of the field; which, ere it was in the earth, God made, and every herb, before it grew On the green stem. God saw that it was good: So even and morn recorded the third day.

Again the Almighty spake: - Let there be lights High in the expanse of heaven, to divide 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. 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. God saw, Surveying his great work, that it was good: For, of celestial bodies, first the sun, A mighty sphere, he framed, unlightsome² first, Though of ethereal mould; then formed the moon Globose, and every magnitude of Stars, And sowed with stars the heaven, thick as a field. Of light by far the greater part he took, Transplanted from her cloudy shrine, and placed In the sun's orb, made porous to receive And drink the liquid light; firm to retain Her gathered beams, great palace now of light. Hither, as to their fountain, other stars Repairing, in their golden urns draw light, And hence the morning planet gilds her horns; By tineture or reflection they augment

Altern. - Alternately.

^"Unlightsome. - Not luminous.

By tincture or reflection they augment.—The horus of Venus, which are tinged and magnified by the solar light.