Page 150 of 239

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,1 rows 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 with3 the florid hue Of rainbows and starry eyes. The waters thus With fish replenished, and the air with fowl, Evening and morn solemnised the fifth day.

The sixth, and of creation last, arose With evening harps and matin; when God said, 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 fertile womb, teemed at a birth Innumerable living creatures, perfect 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; The cattle in the fields and meadows green: Those rare and solitary, these in flocks Pasturing at once, and in broad herds upsprung. The grassy clods now calved; now half appeared The tawny lion, pawing to get free His hinder parts, then springs, as broke from bonds And rampant shakes his brinded main; the ounce, The libbard, and the tiger, as the mole,

Rising, the crumbled earth above them threw In hillocks; the swift stag from underground Bore up his branching head; scarce from his mould Behemoth, biggest born of earth,1 upheaved His vastness; fleeced the flocks and bleating 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: 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, involved Their snaky folds, and added wings. First crept The parsimonious emmet, provident Of future; in small room large heart enclosed; Pattern of just equality, perhaps, Hereafter joined in her popular tribes Of commonalty. Swarming, next appeared The female bee, that feeds her husband drone Deliciously, and builds her waxen cells With honey stored. The rest are numberless, And thou their nature know'st, and gavest them names, Needless to thee repeated; nor unknown The serpent, subtlest beast of all the field, Of huge extent sometimes, with brazen eyes The airy mane terriffe, though to thee Not noxious, but obedient at thy call.

PARADISE LOST.

Now heaven in all her glory shone, and rolled Her motions, as the great first Mover's hand First wheeled their course; earth in her rich attire

Behemoth, biggest born of earth.—Behemoth in Job is the hippopotamous, the river-horse—here it means the elephant.

Mantling proudly.—A term in falconry for spreading the wings like a mantle.

^\ Coloured with the florid hue of rainbows.—The peacock. · Where he wons .- Anglo-Saxon for dwells.

^\ The grassy clods now calved.—Calved is an old English expression for bringing forth generally. Thus the hinds are said to calve. (Job xxxix.; Psalm xxix.) We read also of the calces of the lips. (Hosea xiv.)