"So spake the Almighty, and to what he spake His Word, the filial Godhead, gave effect. Immediate are the acts of God, more swift Than time or motion, but to human ears Cannot without procéss of speech be told, So told as earthly notion can receive. Great triumph and rejoicing was in Heaven, When such was heard declared the Almighty's will: Glory they sung to the most High, good will To future men, and in their dwellings peace; Glory to him, whose just avenging ire Had driven out the ungodly from his sight, And the habitations of the just; to him Glory and praise, whose wisdom had ordained Good out of evil to create, instead
Of spirits malign a better race to bring Into their vacant room, and thence diffuse His good to worlds and ages infinite.
"So sang the hierarchies: meanwhile the Son On his great expedition now appeared, Girt with omnipotence, with radiance crowned Of majesty divine; sapience and love Immense, and all his Father in him shone. About his chariot numberless were poured Cherub and seraph, potentates and thrones, And virtues, winged spirits, and chariots winged From the armoury of God, where stand of old Myriads between two brazen mountains lodged Against a solemn day, harnessed at hand, Celestial equipage; and now came forth Spontaneous, for within them spirit lived, Attendant on their Lord; Heaven opened wide Her ever-during gates, harmonious sound On golden hinges moving, to let forth The King of Glory, in his powerful Word And Spirit, coming to create new worlds. On heavenly ground they stood, and from the shore They viewed the vast immeasurable abyss Outrageous as a sea, dark, wasteful, wild, Up from the bottom turned by furious winds And surging waves, as mountains, to assault Heaven's height, and with the centre mix the pole.
Silence, ye troubled waves! and thou deep, peace!' Said then the omnific Word: 'your discord end!'
Nor stayed, but, on the wings of cherubim Uplifted, in paternal glory rode
Far into Chaos, and the world unborn;
For Chaos heard his voice: him all his train Followed in bright procession, to behold Creation, and the wonders of his might. Then stayed the fervid wheels, and in his hand He took the golden compasses,' prepared In God's eternal store, to circumscribe This universe, and all created things: One foot he centred, and the other turned Round through the vast profundity obscure, And said: Thus far extend, thus far thy bounds, This be thy just circumference, O world.' Thus God the Heaven created, thus the earth, Matter unformed and void: darkness profound Covered the abyss: but on the watery calm His brooding wings the Spirit of God outspread, And vital virtue infused, and vital warmth Throughout the fluid mass, but downward purged The black tartareous cold infernal dregs, Adverse to life: then founded, then conglobed Like things to like, the rest to several place Disparted, and between spun out the air, And earth self-balanced on her centre hung.
Let there be light!' said God, and forthwith light Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure, Sprung from the deep, and from her native east To journey through the airy gloom began, Sphered in a radiant cloud, for yet the sun Was not; she in a cloudy tabernacle
Sojourned the while. God saw the light was good; And light from darkness by the hemisphere Divided light the day, and darkness night He named. Thus was the first day even and morn: Nor passed uncelebrated, nor unsung
By the celestial quires, when orient light Exhaling first from darkness they beheld;
Birth-day of Heaven and earth; with joy and shout The hollow universal orb they filled,
And touched their golden harps, and hymning praised
1 Prov. viii. 27: "When he prepared the heavens, I was there; when he set a compass upon the face of the deep."
God and his works; Creator him they sung, Both when first evening was, and when first morn Again, God said, 'Let there be firmament1
Amid the waters, and let it divide
The waters from the waters!' and God made The firmament, expanse of liquid, pure, Transparent, elemental air, diffused
In circuit to the uttermost convex
Of this great round; partition firm and sure, The waters underneath from those above Dividing for as earth, so he the world Built on circumfluous waters calm, in wide Crystalline ocean; and the loud misrule Of Chaos far removed, lest fierce extremes Contiguous might distemper the whole frame: And Heaven he named the firmament: so even And morning chorus sung the second day.
The earth was formed, but in the womb as yet Of waters, embryon immature involved, Appeared not: over all the face of earth Main ocean flowed, not idle, but, with warm Prolific humour softening all her globe, Fermented the great mother to conceive, Satiate with genial moisture, when God said, 'Be gathered now, ye waters under Heaven, Into one place, and let dry land appear!' Immediately the mountains huge appear Emergent, and their broad bare backs upheave Into the clouds; their tops ascend the sky: So high as heaved the tumid hills, so low Down sunk a hollow bottom broad and deep, Capacious bed of waters: thither they Hasted with glad precipitance, uprolled
1 They who understand the "firmament to be the vast air, expanded and stretched out on all sides to the starry heavens, esteem the waters above it to be those generated, in the middle region of the air, of vapours exhaled and drawn up thither from the steaming earth and nether waters, which descend again in such vast showers and mighty floods of rain, that not only rivers but seas may be imaginable above, as appeared when the "cataracts" came down in a deluge," and the flood-gates of Heaven were opened," Gen. vii. 2. Others, and those many, by these waters above," understand the crystalline heaven (by Gassendus made double), by our author better named "crystalline ocean," by its clearness resembling water: "who layeth the beams of his chambers in the water," Psalm civ. 3.
As drops on dust conglobing from the dry; Part rise in crystal wall, or ridge direct,
For haste; such flight the great command impressed On the swift floods; as armies at the call Of trumpet (for of armies thou hast heard) Troop to their standard, so the watery throng, Wave rolling after wave, where way they found, If steep, with torrent rapture; if through plain, Soft ebbing; nor withstood them rock or hill, But they, or under ground, or circuit wide With serpent error wandering, 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 smelling1 gourd, up stood the corny reed2 Embattled in her field; and the humble shrub, And bush with frizzled hair implicit, 3 last
Rose as in dance the stately trees, and spread
Their branches hung with copious fruit, or gemmed1
Their blossoms; with high woods the hills were crowned,
1 We must obviously read" swelling," with Bentley.
2 The horny reeds stood upright among the undergrowths of nature, like a grove of spears, or a battalion with its pikes aloft. Corneus (Latin), of or like horn. Virg. Æn. iii. 22.
3 "Hair," coma in Latin, is used for leaves, twigs, and branches; and "implicit" signifies entangled. The subject is low, and therefore he is forced to raise the expression.
4 Put forth their blossoms, of gemmare (Latin), to bud forth.Hume.
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 rained1 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 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, unlightsome 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 porous3 to receive
1 This idea is woven in from Gen. ii. 4-6.
2 Celebrated, caused to be remembered. This was done by the 86 even and morning chorus" (ver. 275), with "evening harps and matin (ver. 450). What is done by the voices and instruments is poetically ascribed to the time in which they were employed.— Richardson.
3 Porous, yet firm. Milton seems to have taken this thought from what is said of the Bologna stone, which, being placed in the light, will imbibe and for some time retain it so as to enlighten a dark place. -Richardson.
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