The Sixt, and of Creation last arose
With Eevning Harps and Mattin, when God said, [ 450 ]
Let th Earth bring forth Soul living in her kinde,
Cattel and Creeping things, a of the Earth,
Ea their kihe Earth obeyd, and strait
opning her fertile Woomb teemd at a Birth
Innumerous living Creatures, perfet formes, [ 455 ]
Limbd and full grown: out of the ground up rose
As from his Laire the wilde Beast where he wonns
In Forrest wilde, in Thicket, Brake, or Den;
Among the Trees in Pairs they rose, they walkd:
The Cattel in the Fields and Meddowes green: [ 460 ]
Those rare and solitarie, these in flocks
Pasturing at once, and in broad Herds upsprung.
The grassie Clods now Calvd, now half appeerd
The Tawnie Lion, pawing to get free
His hinder parts, then springs as broke from Bonds, [ 465 ]
And Rampant shakes his Brinded main; the Ounce,
The Libbard, and the Tyger, as the Moale
Rising, the crumbld Earth above them threw
In Hillocks; the swift Stag from under ground
Bore up his brang head: scarse from his mould [ 470 ]
Behemoth biggest born of Earth upheavd
His vastness: Fleect the Flocks and bleating rose,
As Plants: ambiguous between Sea and Land
The River Horse and scalie Crocodile.
At once came forth whatever creeps the ground, [ 475 ]
I or Worme; those wavd thir limber fans
For wings, and smallest Lis exact
In all the Liveries dect of Summers pride
With spots of Gold and Purple, azure and green:
These as a lihir long dimension drew, [ 480 ]
Streaking the ground with sinuous traot all
Minims of Nature; some of Serpent kinde
Wondrous ih and corpulenvolvd
Thir Snakie foulds, and added wings. First crept
The Parsimonious Emmet, provident [ 485 ]
Of future, in small room large heart enclosd,
Pattern of just equalitie perhaps
Hereafter, joind in her popular Tribes
Of onaltie: swarmi appeerd
The Female Bee that feeds her Husband Drone [ 490 ]
Deliciously, and builds her waxen Cells
With Hoord: the rest are numberless,
And thou thir Natures knowst, & gavst them Names,
Needless to thee repeated; nor unknown
The Serpent suttlst Beast of all the field, [ 495 ]
Of huge extent somtimes, with brazen Eyes
And hairie Main terrific, though to thee
Not noxious, but obedient at thy call.