Soft-ebbing; nor withstood them rock or hill; But they, or underground, or circuit wide With serpent error wandering, found their way, And on the washy ooze deep channels wore; Easy, ere God had bid the ground be dry, All but within those banks where rivers now Stream, and perpetual draw their humid train. The dry land Earth, and the great receptacle Of congregated waters he called seas; And saw that it was good, and said, ‘Let the Earth Put forth the verdant grass, herb yielding seed, And fruit-tree yielding fruit after her kind, Whose seed is in herself upon the Earth!’ He scarce had said when the bare Earth, till then Desert and bare, unsightly, unadorned, Brought forth the tender grass, whose verdure clad Her universal face with pleasant green; Then herbs of every leaf, that sudden flowered, Opening their various colours, and made gay Her bosom, smelling sweet; and, these scarce blown, Forth flourished thick the clustering vine, forth crept The smelling gourd, up stood the corny reed Embattled in her field: add the humble shrub, And bush with frizzled hair implicit: last