In hillocks: The swift stag from under ground

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.

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,

Wonderous 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 natures knowest, 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

And hairy mane terrific, though to thee

Not noxious, but obedient at thy call.

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

Consummate lovely smiled; air, water, earth,

By fowl, fish, beast, was flown, was swum, was walked,

Frequent; and of the sixth day yet remained:

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

Govern the rest, self-knowing; and from thence

Magnanimous to correspond with Heaven,

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 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

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

Express; and thou becamest a living soul.

Male he created thee; but thy consort

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.’

Wherever thus created, for no place