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And surging waves, as mountains, to assault Heaven's highth, 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
Up-lifted, in paternal glory rode

Far into Chaos, and the World unborn;
For Chaos heard his voice.

Him all his train

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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 centered, 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!'

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"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

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To journey through the aery gloom began,
Sphered in a radiant cloud, for yet the sun
Was not; she in a cloudy tabernacle

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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,
Birthday of heaven and earth, with joy and shout
The hollow universal orb they filled,

And touched their golden harps, and hymning praised
God and his works; Creator him they sung,
Both when first evening was, and when first morn.
"Again, God said:-'Let there be firmament 261
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 be named the firmament: so even
And morning chorus sung the second day.

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"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

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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 up-heave
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, up-rolled,
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 underground, 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;

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And saw that it was good, and said:-Let the earth
Put forth the verdant grass, herb yielding seed, 310
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;

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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,

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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
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.

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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.

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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

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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 360
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 tincture or reflection they augment
Their small peculiar, though, from human sight
So far remote, with diminution seen.

First in his east the glorious lamp was seen,
Regent of day, and all the horizon round
Invested with bright rays, jocund to run

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His longitude through heaven's high road; the gray
Dawn and the Pleiades before him danced,
Shedding sweet influence. Less bright the moon,
But opposite in levelled west, was set,

His mirror, with full face borrowing her light
From him; for other light she needed none
In that aspect, and still that distance keeps

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