rth nor sea their place possest,
Nor that cerulean canopy which hangs
O'ershadowing all, each undistinguish'd lay,
And one dead form all Nature's features bore;
Unshapely, rude, and Chaos justly nam'd.
Together struggling laid, each element
Confusion strange begat:--Sol had not yet
Whirl'd through the blue expanse his burning car:
Nor Luna yet had lighted forth her lamp,
Nor fed her waning light with borrowed rays.
No globous earth pois'd inly by its weight,
Hung pendent in the circumambient sky:
The sky was not:--Nor Amphitrite had
Clasp'd round the land her wide-encircling arms.
Unfirm the earth, with water mix'd and air;
Opaque the air; unfluid were the waves.
Together clash'd the elements confus'd:
Cold strove with heat, and moisture drought oppos'd;
Light, heavy, hard, and soft, in combat join'd.

Uprose the world's great Lord,--the strife dissolv'd,
The firm earth from the blue sky plac'd apart;
Roll'd back the waves from off the land, and fixt
Where pure ethereal joins with foggy air.
Defin'd each element, and from the mass
Chaoetic, rang'd select, in concord firm
He bound, and all agreed. On high upsprung
The fiery ether to the utmost heaven:
The atmospheric air, in lightness next,
Upfloated:--dense the solid earth dragg'd down
The heavier mass; and girt on every side
By waves circumfluent, seiz'd her place below.

This done, the mass this deity unknown
Divides;--each part dispos'd in order lays:
First earth he rounds, in form a sphere immense,
Equal on every side: then bids the seas,
Pent in by banks, spread their rude waves abroad,
By strong winds vext; and clasp within their arms
The tortuous shores: and marshes wide he adds,
Pure springs and lakes:--he bounds with shelving banks
The streams smooth gliding;--slowly creeping, some
The arid earth absorbs; furious some rush,
And in the watery plain their waves disgorge;
Their narrow bounds escap'd, to billows rise,
And lash the sandy shores. He bade the plains
Extend;--the vallies sink;--the groves to bloom;--
And rocky hills to lift their heads aloft.
And as two zones the northern heaven restrain,
The southern two, and one the hotter midst,
With five the Godhead girt th' inclosed earth,
And climates five upon its face imprest.
The midst from heat inhabitable: snows
Eternal cover two: 'twixt these extremes
Two temperate regions lie, where