1. The Lungs heave incessant, dull, and heavy;
For as yet were all other parts formless,
Shiv'ring, clinging around like a cloud,
Dim and glutinous as the white Polypus,
Driv'n by waves and englob'd on the tide.

2. And the unformèd part crav'd repose;
Sleep began; the Lungs heave on the wave:
Weary, overweigh'd, sinking beneath
In a stifling black fluid, he woke.

3. He arose on the waters; but soon
Heavy falling, his organs like roots
Shooting out from the seed, shot beneath,
And a vast World of Waters around him
In furious torrents began.

4. Then he sunk, and around his spent Lungs
Began intricate pipes that drew in
The spawn of the waters, outbranching
An immense Fibrous Form, stretching out
Thro' the bottoms of Immensity: raging.


5. He rose on the floods; then he smote
The wild deep with his terrible wrath,
Separating the heavy and thin.
6. Down the heavy sunk, cleaving around
To the fragments of Solid: uprose
The thin, flowing round the fierce fires
That glow'd furious in the Expanse.