192 PARADISE LOST. BOOK VII. Fermented the great mother to conceive, Satiate with genial moisture : when God faid, Be gather'd now ye waters under heav'n Into one place, and let dry land appear !- Immediately the mountains huge appear Emergent, and their broad bare backs up-heave Into the clouds, their tops afcend the fky. So high as heav'd the tumid hills, fo low Down funk a hollow bottom, broad and deep, Capacious bed of waters ! Thither they 290 Hailed with glad precipitance, up-rowl'd, As drops on dust conglobing from the dry : Part rife in chryflal wall, or ridge dire& For hafle; fuch flight the Great Command imprefs'd On the fwift floods: as armies at the call 295 Of trumpet, (for of armies thou haft heard) Troop to their flandard ; fo the wat'ry throng, Wave rowling after wave, where way they found, If ileep, with torrent rapture, if through plain, Soft-ebbing ; nor with(tood them rock or hill; 300 But they, or under ground, or circuit wide With ferpent-error wandring, found their way, And on the wathy oofe deep channels wore ; Eafie, e'er God had bid the ground be dry, All but within thole banks, where rivers now 305 Stream, and perpetual draw their humid train. The dry land, earth; and the great receptacle Ofcongregated waters, he call'd leas; And law that it was good : and faid, let th' earth Put forth the verdant grafs, herb yielding feed, 310 And fruit-tree yielding fruit after her kind; Whole feed is in herfelf upon the earth !- He fcarce had faid, when the bare earth ('till then Defert and bare, unfightly, unadorn'd) Brought forth the tender grafs, whofe verdure clad 3i3 Her
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