My soul is wrought to sing of forms transformedto bodies new and strange! Immortal Godsinspire my heart, for ye have changed yourselvesand all things you have changed! Oh lead my songin smooth and measured strains, from olden dayswhen earth began to this completed time!
Before the ocean and the earth appeared—before the skies had overspread them all—the face of Nature in a vast expansewas naught but Chaos uniformly waste.It was a rude and undeveloped mass,that nothing made except a ponderous weight;and all discordant elements confused,were there congested in a shapeless heap.As yet the sun afforded earth no light,nor did the moon renew her crescent horns;the earth was not suspended in the airexactly balanced by her heavy weight.Not far along the margin of the shoreshad Amphitrite stretched her lengthened arms,—for all the land was mixed with sea and air.The land was soft, the sea unfit to sail,the atmosphere opaque, to naught was givena proper form, in everything was strife,and all was mingled in a seething mass—with hot the cold parts strove, and wet with dryand soft with hard, and weight with empty void.But God, or kindly Nature, ended strife—he cut the land from skies, the sea from land,the heavens ethereal from material air;and when were all evolved from that dark masshe bound the fractious parts in tranquil peace.The fiery element of convex heavenleaped from the mass devoid of dragging weight,and chose the summit arch to which the airas next in quality was next in place.The earth more dense attracted grosser partsand moved by gravity sank underneath;and last of all the wide surrounding wavesin deeper channels rolled around the globe.And when this God —which one is yet unknown—had carved asunder that discordant mass,had thus reduced it to its elements,that every part should equally combine,when time began He rounded out the earthand moulded it to form a mighty globe.Then poured He forth the deeps and gave commandthat they should billow in the rapid winds,that they should compass every shore of earth. he also added fountains, pools and lakes,and bound with shelving banks the slanting streams,which partly are absorbed and partly jointhe boundless ocean. Thus received amidthe wide expanse of uncontrolled waves,they beat the shores instead of crooked banks.At His command the boundless plains extend,the valleys are depressed, the woods are clothedin green, the stony mountains rise. And asthe heavens are intersected on the rightby two broad zones, by two that cut the left,and by a fifth consumed with ardent heat,with such a number did the careful Godmark off the compassed weight, and thus the earthreceived as many climes.—Such heat consumesthe middle zone that none may dwell therein;and two extremes are covered with deep snow;and two are placed betwixt the hot and cold,which mixed together give a temperate clime;and over all the atmosphere suspendswith weight proportioned to the fiery sky,exactly as the weight of earth compareswith weight of water.And He ordered mistto gather in the air and spread the clouds.He fixed the thunders that disturb our souls,and brought the lightning on destructive windsthat also waft the cold. Nor did the greatArtificer permit these mighty windsto blow unbounded in the pathless skies,but each discordant brother fixed in space,although His power can scarce restrain their rageto rend the universe. At His commandto far Aurora, Eurus took his way,to Nabath, Persia, and that mountain rangefirst gilded by the dawn; and Zephyr's flightwas towards the evening star and peaceful shores,warm with the setting sun; and Boreasinvaded Scythia and the northern snows;and Auster wafted to the distant southwhere clouds and rain encompass his abode.—and over these He fixed the liquid sky,devoid of weight and free from earthly dross.And scarcely had He separated theseand fixed their certain bounds, when all the stars,which long were pressed and hidden in the mass,began to gleam out from the plains of heaven,and traversed, with the Gods, bright ether fields:and lest some part might be bereft of lifethe gleaming waves were filled with twinkling fish;the earth was covered with wild animals;the agitated air was filled with birds. But one more perfect and more sanctified,a being capable of lofty thought,intelligent to rule, was wanting stillman was created! Did the Unknown Goddesigning then a better world make manof seed divine? or did Prometheustake the new soil of earth (that still containedsome godly element of Heaven's Life)and use it to create the race of man;first mingling it with water of new streams;so that his new creation, upright man,was made in image of commanding Gods?On earth the brute creation bends its gaze,but man was given a lofty countenanceand was commanded to behold the skies;and with an upright face may view the stars:—and so it was that shapeless clay put onthe form of man till then unknown to earth.