by John Milton
Of trumpet (for of armies thou hast heard)
Troop to their standard, so the wat’ry throng,
Wave rolling after wave, where way they found,
If steep, with torrent rapture299, if through plain,
Soft-ebbing; nor withstood them rock or hill,
But they, or under ground, or circuit wide
With serpent error wand’ring302, 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 waters308 he called seas:
And saw that it was good, and said, ‘Let th’ earth309
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 earth313, 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 flow’red
Op’ning their various colors, and made gay
Her bosom smelling sweet: and these scarce blown,
Forth flourished thick the clust’ring vine, forth crept
The swelling321 gourd, up stood the corny reed
Embattled322 in her field: add the humble shrub,
And bush with frizzled hair323 implicit: last
Rose as in dance the stately trees, and spread
Their branches hung with copious fruit; or gemmed325
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 Heav’n, 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 ground332
None was, but from the earth a dewy mist
Went up and watered all the ground, and each
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 ev’n and morn recorded338 the third day.
“Again th’339 Almighty spake: ‘Let there be lights
High in th’ 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 heav’n
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 altern348: and made the stars,
And set them in the firmament of heav’n
To illuminate the Earth, and rule the day
In their vicissitude351, 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, unlightsome first,
Though of ethereal mold356: then formed the moon
Globose, and every magnitude of stars357,
And sowed with stars the heav’n 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 planet366 gilds her horns;
By tincture or reflection367 they augment
Their small peculiar368, though from human sight
So far remote, with diminution seen.
First in his east the glorious lamp was seen,
Regent of day, and all th’ horizon round
Invested372 with bright rays, jocund to run
His longitude373 through Heav’n’s high road: the gray
Dawn, and the Pleiades374 before him danced
Shedding sweet influence: less bright the moon,
But opposite in leveled west376 was set
His mirror377, with full face borrowing her light
From him, for other light she needed none
In that aspect379, and still that distance keeps
Till night, then in the east her turn she shines,
Revolved on Heav’n’s great axle381, and her reign
With thousand lesser lights dividual382 holds,
With thousand thousand stars, that then appeared
Spangling the hemisphere: then first adorned
With their bright luminaries that set and rose,
Glad ev’ning and glad morn crowned the fourth day.
“And God said,387 ‘Let the waters generate
Reptile388 with spawn abundant, living soul:
And let fowl fly above the earth, with wings
Displayed390 on the op’n firmament of heav’n.’
And God created the great whales, and each
Soul living, each that crept, which plenteously
The waters generated by their kinds393,
And every bird of wing after his kind;
And saw that it was good, and blessed them, saying,
‘Be fruitful, multiply, and in the seas
And lakes and running streams the waters fill;
And let the fowl be multiplied on the earth.’
Forthwith the sounds and seas, each creek and bay
With fry innumerable swarm, and shoals
Of fish that with their fins and shining scales
Glide under the green wave, in schools that oft
Bank the mid sea403: part single or with mate
Graze the seaweed their pasture, and through groves
Of coral stray, or sporting with quick glance
Show to the sun their waved coats dropped with gold,
Or in their pearly shells at ease, attend
Moist nutriment, or under rocks their food
In jointed armor watch: on smooth409 the seal,
And bended410 dolphins play: part huge of bulk
Wallowing unwieldy, enormous in their gait
Tempest the ocean: there leviathan412
Hugest of living creatures, on the deep
Stretched like a promontory sleeps or swims,
And seems a moving land, and at his gills415
Draws in, and at his trunk spouts out a sea.
Meanwhile the tepid caves, and fens and shores
Their brood as numerous hatch, from the egg that soon
Bursting with kindly419 rupture forth disclosed
Their callow420 young, but feathered soon and fledge
They summed their pens421, and soaring th’ air sublime
With clang422 despised the ground, under a cloud
In prospect; there the eagle and the stork
On cliffs and cedar tops their eyries build:
Part loosely425 wing the region, part more wise
In common, ranged in figure wedge their way,
Intelligent427 of seasons, and set forth
Their airy caravan high over seas
Flying429, and over lands with mutual wing
Easing their flight; so steers the prudent crane
Her annual voyage, borne on winds; the air
Floats432, as they pass, fanned with unnumbered plumes:
From branch to branch the sma
ller birds with song
Solaced434 the woods, and spread their painted wings
Till ev’n, nor then the solemn nightingale
Ceased warbling, but all night tuned her soft lays:
Others on silver lakes and rivers bathed
Their downy breast; the swan with archèd neck
Between her white wings mantling439 proudly, rows
Her state440 with oary feet: yet oft they quit
The dank441, and rising on stiff pennons, tower
The mid-aerial sky442: others on ground
Walked firm; the crested cock whose clarion sounds
The silent hours, and th’ other444 whose gay train
Adorns him, colored with the florid hue
Of rainbows and starry eyes446. The waters thus
With fish replenished, and the air with fowl,
Ev’ning and morn solemnized the fifth day.
“The sixth and of creation last arose
With ev’ning450 harps and matin, when God said,
‘Let th’ earth bring forth soul451 living in her kind,
Cattle and creeping things, and beast of the earth,
Each in their kind.’ The earth obeyed, and straight
Op’ning her fertile womb teemed454 at a birth
Innumerous living creatures, perfect forms,
Limbed and full-grown: out of the ground uprose
As from his lair the wild beast where he wons457
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 rare461 and solitary, these in flocks
Pasturing at once, and in broad herds upsprung.
The grassy clods now calved, now half appeared
The tawny lion464, 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 under ground
Bore up his branching head: scarce from his mold
Behemoth471 biggest born of earth upheaved
His vastness: fleeced the flocks and bleating rose,
As plants: ambiguous between sea and land
The river horse474 and scaly crocodile.
At once came forth whatever creeps the ground,
Insect or worm476; 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
Minims482 of nature; some of serpent kind
Wondrous in length and corpulence involved483
Their snaky folds, and added wings. First crept
The parsimonious emmet485, provident
Of future, in small room large heart486 enclosed,
Pattern487 of just equality perhaps
Hereafter, joined in her popular tribes465
Of commonalty: swarming next appeared
The female bee490 that feeds her husband drone
Deliciously, and builds her waxen cells
With honey stored: the rest are numberless,
And thou their natures know’st, and gav’st them names493,
Needless to thee repeated; nor unknown
The serpent subtlest beast of all the field,
Of huge extent sometimes, with brazen eyes
And hairy main497 terrific, though to thee
Not noxious498, but obedient at thy call.
Now heav’n 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
Consummate lovely smiled; air, water, earth,
By fowl, fish, beast, was flown, was swum, was walked
Frequent504; and of the sixth day yet remained;
There wanted yet the master work, the end505
Of all yet done; a creature who not prone
And brute as other creatures, but endued
With sanctity of reason, might508 erect
His stature, and upright with front509 serene
Govern the rest, self-knowing510, and from thence
Magnanimous511 to correspond with Heav’n,
But grateful to acknowledge whence his good
Descends, thither with heart and voice and eyes
Directed in devotion, to adore
And worship God supreme, who made him chief
Of all his works: therefore th’ omnipotent
Eternal Father (for where is not he
Present) thus to his Son audibly spake.
“ ‘Let us make519 now man in our image, man
In our similitude, and let them rule
Over the fish and fowl of sea and air,
Beast of the field, and over all the earth,
And every creeping thing that creeps the ground.’
This said, he formed thee, Adam, thee O man
Dust of the ground, and in thy nostrils breathed
The breath of life; in his own image he
Created thee, in the image of God
Express528, and thou becam’st a living soul.
Male he created thee, but thy consort
Female for race; then blessed mankind530, and said,
‘Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the Earth,
Subdue it, and throughout dominion hold
Over fish of the sea, and fowl of the air,
And every living thing that moves on the Earth.’
Wherever thus created, for no place
Is yet distinct by name, thence, as thou know’st
He brought thee into this delicious537 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 sorts are here that all th’ Earth yields,
Variety without end; but of the tree
Which tasted works knowledge of good and evil,
Thou may’st not; in the day thou eat’st, thou di’st;
Death is the penalty imposed, beware,
And govern well thy appetite, lest Sin
Surprise thee, and her black attendant Death.
Here finished he, and all that he had made
Viewed, and behold all was entirely good;
So ev’n and morn accomplished the sixth day:
Yet not till the Creator from his work
Desisting, though unwearied552, up returned
Up to the Heav’n of Heav’ns his high abode,
Thence to behold this new created world
Th’ addition of his empire, how it showed
In prospect from his throne, how good, how fair,
Answering his great idea557. Up he rode
Followed with acclamation and the sound
Symphonious559 of ten thousand harps that tuned
Angelic harmonies: the Earth, the air
Resounded, (thou remember’st, for thou heard’st)
The heav’ns and all the constellations rung,
The planets in their stations list’ning stood,
While the bright pomp564 ascended jubilant.
‘Open, ye everlasting gates,’ they sung,565
‘Open, ye Heav’ns, your living doors; let in
The great Creator from his work returned
Magnificent, his six days’ work, a world;
Open, and henceforth oft; for569 God will deign
To visit oft the dwellings of just men
Delighted, and with frequent intercourse
Thither will send his wingèd messengers
On errands of supernal grace.’ So sung
The glorious train ascending: he through Heav’n,
That opened wide her blazing portals, led
To God’s eternal house direct the way,
A broad and ample road, whose dust is gold
And pavement stars, as stars to thee appear,
Seen in the galaxy, that Milky Way579
Which nightly as a circling zone thou seest
Powdered with stars. And now on Earth the seventh
Ev’ning arose in Eden, for the sun
Was set, and twilight from the east came on,
Forerunning night; when at the holy mount
Of Heav’n’s high-seated top, th’ imperial throne
Of Godhead, fixed forever firm and sure,
The Filial Power arrived, and sat him down
With his588 great Father, for he also went
Invisible, yet stayed (such privilege
Hath omnipresence) and the work ordained,
Author and end of all things, and from work
Now resting, blessed and hallowed the sev’nth day,
As resting on that day from all his work,
But not in silence holy kept594; the harp
Had work and rested not, the solemn pipe,
And dulcimer596, all organs of sweet stop,
All sounds on fret597 by string or golden wire
Tempered soft tunings, intermixed with voice
Choral or unison599: of incense clouds
Fuming from golden censers hid the mount.
Creation and the six days’ acts they sung,
‘Great are thy works, Jehovah, infinite
Thy power; what thought can measure thee or tongue
Relate thee; greater now in thy return
Than from the giant angels605; thee that day
Thy thunders magnified; but606 to create
Is greater than created to destroy.
Who can impair thee, mighty king, or bound
Thy empire? Easily the proud attempt
Of spirits apostate and their counsels vain
Thou hast repelled, while impiously they thought
Thee to diminish, and from thee withdraw
The number of thy worshippers. Who seeks
To lessen thee, against his purpose serves
To manifest the more thy might: his evil
Thou usest, and from thence creat’st more good.
Witness this new-made world, another Heav’n
From Heaven gate not far, founded in view
On the clear hyaline619, the glassy sea;
Of amplitude almost immense, with stars
Numerous, and every star perhaps a world621
Of destined habitation621; but thou know’st622
Their seasons622: among these the seat of men,
Earth with her nether ocean624 circumfused,
Their pleasant dwelling place. Thrice happy men,
And sons of men, whom God hath thus advanced,
