Page:Paradise lost by Milton, John.djvu/246

With fish replenished, and the air with fowl,
Evening and morn solemnized the fifth day.
"The sixth, and of creation last, arose
With evening harps and matin; when God said:450
'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,
Opening her fertile womb, teemed at a birth
Innumerous living creatures, perfect forms,
Limbed and full grown. Out of the ground up-rose,
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—
The cattle in the fields and meadows green:460
Those rare and solitary, these in flocks
Pasturing at once, and in broad herds up-sprung.
The grassy clods now calved; now half-appeared
The tawny lion, pawing to get free
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 underground