Let there be light; said God, and forthwith light Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure, Sprung from the deep, and from her native east To journey through the airy gloom began, Spher’d in a radiant cloud, for yet the sun Was not; she in a cloudy tabernacle Sojourn’d the while. God saw the light was good; And light from darkness by the hemisphere Divided: light the day, and darkness night He nam’d. Thus was the first day even and morn. (VII, 243–252)
Again the Almighty spake: Let there be lights High in th’expanse of heaven, to divide The day from night; and let them be for sighs, 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. 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 the vicissitude, and rule the night, And light from darkness to divide. God saw Surveying his great work, that it was good: (VII, 339–353)
Let us make now Man in our image, Man In our similitude, and let the rule Over the fish and fowl of sea and air, And every creeping thing that creeps the ground. This said, he form’d thee, Adam, thee, O Man; Dust of the ground, and in thy nostrils breath’d The breath of life; in his own image he Created thee, in the image of God Express, and thou becam’st a living soul. (VII, 519–528)
Previous section Book VII Next section Book IX, Lines 1–403

Popular pages: Paradise Lost

Take a Study Break