Root downward, and brake forth on every hand,
Till the strong saplings, rank and file, stood up,
A mighty army, which o'erran the isle,
And changed the wilderness into a forest.
All this appear'd accomplish'd in the space
Between the morning and the evening star:
So, in his third day's work, Jehovah spake,
And Earth, an infant, naked as she came
Out of the womb of chaos, straight put on
Her beautiful attire, and deck'd her robe
Of verdure with ten thousand glorious flowers,
Exhaling incense; crown'd her mountain-heads
With cedars, train'd her vines around their girdles,
And pour'd spontaneous harvests at their feet.
Nor were those woods without inhabitants
Besides the ephemera of earth and air;
--Where glid the sunbeams through the latticed boughs,
And fell like dew-drops on the spangled ground,
To light the diamond-beetle on his way;
--Where cheerful openings let the sky look down
Into the very heart of solitude,
On little garden-pots of social flowers,
That crowded from the shades to peep at daylight;
--Or where unpermeable foliage made
Midnight at noon, and chill, damp horror reign'd
O'er dead, fall'n leaves and slimy funguses;
--Reptiles were quicken'd into various birth.
Loathsome, unsightly, swoln to obscene bulk,
Lurk'd the dark toad beneath the infected turf;
The slow-worm crawl'd, the light cameleon climb'd,