As plants; ambiguous between sea and land, The river-horse and scaly crocodile. At once came forth whatever creeps the ground, Insect or worm. Those waved their limber fans For wings, and smallest lineaments exact In all the liveries decked of summer’s pride, With spots of gold and purple, azure and green; These as a line their long dimension drew, Streaking the ground with sinuous trace: not all Minims of nature; some of serpent kind, Wondrous in length and corpulence, involved Their snaky folds, and added wings. First crept The parsimonious emmet, provident Of future, in small room large heart enclosed; Pattern of just equality perhaps Hereafter, joined in her popular tribes Of commonalty. Swarming next appeared The female bee, that feeds her husband drone Deliciously, and builds her waxen cells With honey stored. The rest are numberless, And thou their natures know’st, and gav’st them names, Needless to thee repeated; nor unknown The serpent, subtlest beast of all the field, Of huge extent sometimes, with brazen eyes