by John Milton
God made, and every herb, before it grew
On the green stem; God saw that it was good:
So ev’n and morn recorded the third day.
Again th’ Almighty spake: Let there be lights
340 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
345 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 heav’n
350 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
355 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,
360 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
365 Repairing, in their golden urns draw light,
And hence the morning planet gilds his horns;
By tincture or reflection they augment
Their small peculiar, though from human sight
So far remote, with diminution seen.
370 First in his east the glorious lamp was seen,
Regent of day, and all th’ horizon round
Invested with bright rays, jocund to run
His longitude through heav’n’s high road: the grey
Dawn, and the Pleiades before him danced
375 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 aspéct, and still that distance keeps
380 Till night, then in the east her turn she shines,
Revolved on heaven’s great axle, and her reign
With thousand lesser lights dividual holds,
With thousand thousand stars, that then appeared
Spangling the hemisphere: then first adorned
385 With their bright luminaries that set and rose,
Glad ev’ning and glad morn crowned the fourth day.
And God said, Let the waters generate
Reptile with spawn abundant, living soul:
And let fowl fly above the earth, with wings
390 Displayed 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 kinds,
And every bird of wing after his kind;
395 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
400 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 sea: part single or with mate
Graze the sea-weed their pasture, and through groves
405 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 armour watch: on smooth the seal,
410 And bended dolphins play: part huge of bulk
Wallowing unwieldy, enormous in their gait
Tempest the ocean: there Leviathan
Hugest of living creatures, on the deep
Stretched like a promontory sleeps or swims,
415 And seems a moving land, and at his gills
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 kindly rupture forth disclosed
420 Their callow young, but feathered soon and fledge
They summed their pens, and soaring th’ air sublime
With clang despised the ground, under a cloud
In prospect; there the eagle and the stork
On cliffs and cedar tops their eyries build:
425 Part loosely wing the region, part more wise
In common, ranged in figure wedge their way,
Intelligent of seasons, and set forth
Their airy caravan high over seas
Flying, and over lands with mutual wing
430 Easing their flight; so steers the prudent crane
Her annual voyage, borne on winds; the air
Floats, as they pass, fanned with unnumbered plumes:
From branch to branch the smaller birds with song
Solaced the woods, and spread their painted wings
435 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 mantling proudly, rows
440 Her state with oary feet: yet oft they quit
The dank, and rising on stiff pennons, tow’r
The mid aerial sky: others on ground
Walked firm; the crested cock whose clarion sounds
The silent hours, and th’ other whose gay train
445 Adorns him, coloured with the florid hue
Of rainbows and starry eyes. The waters thus
With fish replenished, and the air with fowl,
Ev’ning and morn solémnized the fifth day.
The sixth, and of Creation last arose
450 With ev’ning 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
Op’ning her fertile womb teemed at a birth
455 Innumerous living creatures, perfect forms,
Limbed and full-grown: out of the ground uprose
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:
460 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
465 His hinder parts, then springs as broke from bonds,
And rampant shakes his brinded mane; 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
470 Bore up his branching head: scarce from his mould
Behemoth biggest born of earth upheaved
His vastness: fleeced the flocks and bleating rose,
As plants: ambiguous between sea and land
The river horse and scaly crocodile.
475 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:
480 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
485 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
490 The female bee 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 names,
Needless to thee repeated; nor unknown
495 The serpent subtlest beast of all the field,
Of huge extent sometimes, with brazen eyes
And hairy mane terrific, though to thee
Not noxious, but obedient at thy call.
Now heav’n in all her glory shone, and rolled
500 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
Frequent; and of the sixth day yet remained;
505 There wanted yet the master work, the end
Of all yet done; a creature who not prone
And brute as other creatures, but endued
With sanctity of reason, might erect
His stature, and upright with front serene
510 Govern the rest, self-knowing, and from thence
Magnanimous 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
515 And worship God supreme, who made him chief
Of all his works: therefore the Omnipotent
Eternal Father (for where is not he
Present) thus to his Son audibly spake.
Let us make now man in our image, man
520 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
525 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
Express, and thou becam’st a living soul..
Male he created thee, but thy consórt
530 Female for race; then blessed mankind, 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.
535 Wherever thus created, for no place
Is yet distinct by name, thence, as thou know’st
He brought thee into this delicious grove,
This garden, planted with the trees of God,
Delectable both to behold and taste;
540 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 diest;
545 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;
550 So ev’n and morn accomplished the sixth day:
Yet not till the Creator from his work
Desisting, though unwearied, up returned
Up to the Heav’n of Heav’ns his high abode,
Thence to behold this new created world
555 Th’ addition of his empire, how it showed
In prospect from his throne, how good, how fair,
Answering his great Idea. Up he rode
Followed with acclamation and the sound
Symphonious of ten thousand harps that tuned
560 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 pomp ascended jubilant.
565 Open, ye everlasting gates, they sung,
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; for God will deign
570 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,
575 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 Way
580 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
585 Of Heav’n’s high-seated top, th’ imperial throne
Of Godhead, fixed for ever firm and sure,
The Filial Power arrived, and sat him down
With his great Father (for he also went
Invisible, yet stayed: such privilege
590 Hath Omnipresence) and the work ordained,
Author and end of all things, and from work
Now resting, blessed and hallowed the seventh day,
As resting on that day from all his work,
But not in silence holy kept; the harp
595 Had work and rested not, the solemn pipe,
And dulcimer, all organs of sweet stop,
All sounds on fret by string or golden wire
Tempered soft tunings, intermixed with voice
Choral or unison: of incense clouds
600 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
605 Than from the Giant angels; thee that day
Thy thunders magnified; but to create
Is greater than created to destroy.
Who can impair thee, mighty King, or bound
Thy empire? easily the proud attempt
610 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
615 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
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From Heaven gate not far, founded in view
On the clear hyaline, the glassy sea;
620 Of amplitude almost immense, with stars
Numerous, and every star perhaps a world
Of destined habitation; but thou know’st
Their seasons: among these the seat of men,
Earth with her nether Ocean circumfused,
625 Their pleasant dwelling place. Thrice happy men,
And sons of men, whom God hath thus advanced,
Created in his image, there to dwell
And worship him, and in reward to rule
Over his works, on earth, in sea, or air,
630 And multiply a race of worshippers
Holy and just: thrice happy if they know
Their happiness, and persevere upright.
So sung they, and the Empyrean rung,
With hallelujahs: thus was Sabbath kept.
635 And thy request think now fulfilled, that asked
How first this world and face of things began,
And what before thy memory was done
From the beginning, that posterity
Informed by thee might know; if else thou seek’st
640 Aught, not surpassing human measure, say.
BOOK VIII
The Argument
Adam inquires concerning celestial motions, is doubtfully
answered, and exhorted to search rather things more worthy
of knowledge: Adam assents, and still desirous to detain
Raphael, relates to him what he remembered since his own
5 creation, his placing in Paradise, his talk with God concerning
solitude and fit society, his first meeting and nuptials with Eve,
his discourse with the angel thereupon; who after admonitions
repeated departs.
The angel ended, and in Adam’s ear
So charming left his voice, that he a while
Thought him still speaking, still stood fixed to hear;
Then as new waked thus gratefully replied.
5 What thanks sufficient, or what recompense
Equal have I to render thee, divine
Historian, who thus largely hast allayed
The thirst I had of knowledge, and vouchsafed
This friendly condescension to relate
10 Things else by me unsearchable, now heard
With wonder, but delight, and, as is due,
With glory áttribúted to the high
Creator; something yet of doubt remains,
Which only thy solution can resolve.
15 When I behold this goodly frame, this world
Of heav’n and earth consisting, and compute
Their magnitudes, this earth a spot, a grain,
An atom, with the firmament compared
And all her numbered stars, that seem to roll
20 Spaces incomprehensible (for such