Book I

The formation of the world from the confusion of Chaos by the wisdom and power of the Deity is here described, together with a delineation of the harmonious system of the universe, and the mutual dependences and operations of powers of nature⁠—Birds, beasts, and fishes, brought into existence⁠—The creation of man: his superiority to other animals evinced in the structure of his body and the faculties of his mind.

Of bodies changed to various forms I sing: Ye gods, from whom these miracles did spring, Inspire my numbers with celestial heat, Till I my long laborious work complete; And add perpetual tenor to my rhymes, Deduced from Nature’s birth to Caesar’s times.

In ample oceans disembogued, are lost. He shades the woods, the valleys he restrains With rocky mountains, and extends the plains.

Before the seas, and this terrestrial ball, And heaven’s high canopy that covers all, One was the face of Nature; if a face: Rather a rude and indigested mass: A lifeless lump, unfashion’d and unframed, Of jarring seeds, and justly Chaos named. No sun was lighted up the world to view, No moon did yet her blunted horns renew, Nor yet was earth suspended in the sky, Nor poised, did on her own foundations lie, Nor seas about the shores their arms had thrown; But earth, and air, and water were in one. Thus air was void of light, and earth unstable, And water’s dark abyss unnavigable. No certain form on any was impress’d; All were confused, and each disturb’d the rest. For hot and cold were in one body fix’d, And soft with hard, and light with heavy, mix’d.

But God, or Nature, while they thus contend, To these intestine discords put an end. Then earth from air, and seas from earth, were driven, And grosser air sunk from ethereal heaven. Thus disembroil’d, they take their proper place; The next of kin contiguously embrace; And foes are sunder’d by a larger space. The force of fire ascended first on high, And took its dwelling in the vaulted sky: Then air succeeds, in lightness next to fire, Whose atoms from unactive earth retire; Earth sinks beneath, and draws a numerous throng Of ponderous, thick, unwieldy, seeds along. About her coasts unruly waters roar, And, rising on a ridge, insult the shore. Thus when the god, whatever god was he, Had form’d the whole, and made the parts agree, That no unequal portions might be found, He moulded earth into a spacious round: Then, with a breath, he gave the winds to blow, And bade the congregated waters flow. He adds the running springs, and standing lakes; And bounding banks for winding rivers makes. Some part, in earth are swallow’d up, the most

To greet the bless’d appearance of the sun. Westward, the wanton zephyr wings his flight, Pleased with the remnants of departing light. Fierce Boreas, with his offspring issues forth To invade the frozen wagon of the north; While frowning Auster seeks the southern sphere, And rots, with endless rain, the unwholesome year.

High o’er the clouds, and empty realms of wind, The god a clearer space for heaven design’d; Where fields of light, and liquid ether flow, Purged from the ponderous dregs of earth below.

Scarce had the power distinguish’d these, when straight The stars, no longer overlaid with weight, Exert their heads from underneath the mass, And upward shoot, and kindle as they pass, And with diffusive light adorn their heavenly place. Then, every void of nature to supply, With forms of gods he fills the vacant sky; New herds of beasts he sends the plains to share; New colonies of birds to people air; And to their oozy beds the finny fish repair.