On Creation

„I saw when at this Word the formless Mass,
This world’s material mould, came to a heap:
Confusion heard his voice, and wild uproar
Stood rul’d, stood vast infinitude confin’d;
Till at this second bidding darkness fled,
Light shone, and order from disorder sprung:
Swift to their several Quarters hasted then
The cumbrous Elements, Earth, Flood, Air, Fire,
And this Ethereal quintessence of Heav’n
Flew upward, spirited with various forms,
That roll’d orbicular, and turn’d to stars
Numberless, as thou seest, and how they move;
Each had his place appointed, each his course,
The rest in circuit walls this Universe.“

———

„(…) Meanwhile the Son
On his great Expedition now appear’d
Girt with omnipotence, with Radiance crowned
Of Majesty Divine, Sapience and Love
Immense, and all his Father in him shone.
(…)
The King of Glory in his powerful word
And Spirit coming to create new Worlds.
On heav’nly ground they stood, and from the shore
They view’d the vast immeasurable Abyss
Outrageous as a Sea, dark, wasteful, wild,
Up from the bottom turn’d by furious winds
And surging waves, as Mountains to assault
Heav’n’s highth, and with the Centre mix the Pole.
Silence, ye troubl’d waves, and thou Deep, peace,
Said then th’Omnific Word, your discord end:
Nor stay’d, but on the wings of Cherubim
Uplifted, in Paternal Glory rode
Far into Chaos, and the World unborn;
For Chaos heard his voice: him all his Train
Follow’d in bright procession to behold
Creation, and the wonders of his might.
Then stay’d the fervid Wheels, and in his hand
He took the golden Compasses, prepar’d
In God’s Eternal store, to circumscribe
This Universe, and all created things:
One foot he centred, and the other turn’d
Round through the vast profundity obscure,
And said, Thus far extend, thus far thy bounds,
This be thy just Circumference, O World.
Thus God the Heav’n created, thus the Earth,
Matter unformed and void: Darkness profound
Cover’d th’Abyss: but on the wat’ry calm
His brooding wings the Spirit of God outspread,
And vital virtue infus’d, and vital warmth
Throughout the fluid Mass, but downward purg’d
The black tartareous cold Infernal dregs
Adverse to life; then founded, then conglob’d
Like things to like, the rest to several place
Disparted, and between spun out the Air,
And Earth self-balanc’t on her Centre hung.

(J. Milton, „Paradise Lost“)