To whom the Angel: “Therefore, what he gives (Whose praise be ever sung) to Man, in part Spiritual, may of purest Spirits be found No ingrateful food: and food alike those pure Intelligential substances require As doth your rational; and both contain Within them every lower faculty Of sense, whereby they hear, see, smell, touch, taste, Tasting concoct, digest, assimilate, And corporeal to incorporeal turn. For know, whatever was created needs To be sustained and fed; of elements The grosser feeds the purer; earth the sea; Earth and the sea feed air; the air those fires Ethereal, and, as lowest, first the moon; Whence in her visage round those spots, unpurged Vapours not yet into her substance turned. Nor doth the moon no nourishment exhale From her moist continent to higher orbs. The sun, that light imparts to all, receives From all his alimental recompense In humid exhalations, and at even Sups with the ocean. Though in Heaven the trees Of life ambrosial fruitage bear, and vines