Classic Poem

Eternall and all-working God, which wast
Before the world, whose frame by thee was cast,
And beatifi'd with beamefull lampes above,
By thy great wisedome set how they should move
To guide the seasons, equally to all,
Which come and goe as they doe rise and fall.
My mighty Maker, O doe thou infuse
Such life and spirit into my labouring Muse,
That I may sing (what but from Noah thou hid'st)
The greatest thing that ever yet thou didst
Since the Creation; that the world may see
The Muse is heavenly, and deriv'd from thee.
O let thy glorious Angell which since kept
That gorgeous Eden, where once Adam slept;
When tempting Eve was taken from his side,
Let him great God not onely be my guide,
But with his fiery Faucheon still be nie,
To keepe affliction farre from me, that I
With a free soule thy wondrous workes may show,
Then like that Deluge shall my numbers flow,
Telling the state wherein the earth then stood,
The Gyant race, the universall floud.
The fruitfull earth being lusty then and strong,
Like to a Woman, fit for love, and young,
Brought forth her creatures mighty, not a thing
Issu'd from her, but a continuall spring
Had to increase it, and to make it flourish,
For in her selfe she had that power to nourish
Her Procreation, that her children then
Were at the instant of their birth, halfe men.
Men then begot so soone, and got so long,
That scarcely one a thousand men among
But he ten thousand in his time might see,
That from his loynes deriv'd their Pedegree.
The full-womb'd Women, very hardly went
Out their nine months, abundant nature lent
Their fruit such thriving, as that once waxt quicke,
The large-limb'd mother, neither faint nor sicke,
Hasted her houre by her abundant health,
Nature so plaid the unthrift with her wealth,
So prodigally lavishing her store
Upon the teeming earth, then wasting more
Then it had need of: not the smallest weed
Knowne in that first age; but the naturall seed
Made it a Plant, to these now since the Floud,
So that each Garden look'd then like a Wood:
Beside, in Med'cen, simples had that power,
That none need then the Planetary houre
To helpe their working, they so juycefull were.
The Winter and the Spring time of the yeare
Seem'd all one season: that most stately tree
Of Libanus, which many times we see
Mention'd for talenesse in the holy Writ,
Whose tops the clouds oft in their wandring hit,
Were shrubs to those then on the earth that grew;
Nor the most sturdy storme that ever blew
Their big-growne bodies, to the earth ere shooke,
Their mighty Rootes, so certaine fastening tooke;
Cover'd with grasse, more softe than any silke,
The Trees dropt honey, and the Springs gusht milke:
The Flower-fleec't Meadow, and the gorgeous grove,
Which should smell sweetest in their bravery, strove;
No little shrub, but it some Gum let fall,
To make the cleere Ayre aromaticall:
Whilst to the little Birds melodious straines,
The trembling Rivers tript along the Plaines.
Shades serv'd for houses, neither Heate nor Cold
Troubl'd the yong, nor yet annoy'd the old:
The batning earth all plenty did afford,
And without tilling (or her owne accord)
That living idly without taking paine
(Like to the first) made every man a Caine.